


Distractions

by morningsound15



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-30 17:18:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 84,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6433270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morningsound15/pseuds/morningsound15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Ginny sighed and slumped back in her seat. “You’re letting him win. He’s winning the breakup!”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Everything you’re saying is ridiculous! You can’t win a breakup.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Obviously you can, and Ron is doing it!”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“You’re being childish. Not everything is about winning and losing.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Ginny frowned at Hermione’s nonchalance. </i>
</p><p>--</p><p>Ron and Hermione have recently broken up, and Ginny — concerned for her best friend — has decided that the only thing for Hermione to do now is to date someone new to make Ron jealous. And who better than Hermione’s best friend (and coincidentally Ron’s younger sister) to drive him absolutely mental?</p><p>Fake Dating AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the sake of this story, Voldemort exists (there are mentions of him) but isn’t a pressing danger. This takes place roughly during the 6th book, but in an alternate universe, so some details have changed to fit this story’s narrative.
> 
> ~~~
> 
> Also follow me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)

**

“You need to stop moping.” Ginny said, sitting down heavily on one of the plush red armchairs by the fire.

Hermione started, blinking rapidly to shake the fog from her eyes, her brain struggling to focus on the conversation she suddenly found herself engaged in. “What?”

Ginny sighed and kicked her feet up, knocking a few of Hermione’s books astray. The older girl glared at her, but Ginny just raised an eyebrow, daring her to say something. “You need to stop moping about, Hermione. Depression is not a good colour on you.”

Hermione tipped her nose in the air and turned back to her Transfiguration essay. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Ginny sighed again and crossed her arms over her chest. She glared off towards the corner of the Common Room, where her brother and his tramp of the month, Lavender Brown, sat… _coupling_. “Ugh.” Ginny snorted in disgust. “Really, you think they’d have more class than that. Lavender leaves _nothing_ to the imagination.”

“Ginny…” Hermione scolded softly.

“ _What_? It’s true.” Ginny stared at her brother for a few more seconds. “It looks like he’s eating her face.”

“Ginny, stop.” Hermione managed to say through her half-smile.

“Look at him, sticking his tongue down her throat. Of course he would be doing this _here_.” Ginny reached into her robes and pulled out her wand with one quick flourish.

“What are you doing?” Hermione exclaimed.

“Teaching _Ronald_ to have a little tact.”

“Ginny, no!” Hermione stretched across the ottoman and grabbed her friend’s wrist. “You’ll only make it worse,” she continued quietly, hoping that despite her outburst she had avoided detection by the two pairs of eyes she really didn’t want to notice them.

(Part of her knew, of course, that they _had_ to know she was there. The walked in after she had already cemented her place in front of the fireplace. There’s no way Ron and Lavender had missed her.)

“Or I could make it infinitely _better_. Come on, Hermione. I’ve been toying with this new spell, see if you do it right, he’ll get these _massive_ boils–”

“I mean worse for _me_ , Ginny. I just want to forget all of this… unpleasantness.”

Ginny lowered her wand, her eyes glinting in the firelight. “Merlin Hermione, I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“It’s nothing, Gin. Just forget it, okay?” She took a stabilizing breath. “What’s done is done, I’m doing fine and Ron is… well he certainly _looks_ happy.”

“But you’re _not_ fine, you’re _miserable_. I’ve seen you, Hermione. You’re barely eating, all you do is write essays… you haven’t even made any clothes for the elves in the past few weeks. I don’t like who you are when you’re like this. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m trying, okay? Things are tough right now. Ron and I _just_ broke up—”

“He’s an idiot.”

“I know.” Hermione smiled. “It’s only been about a month and—”

“And he’s _already_ moved on.”

“ _And_ all I’m interested in right now is finding a little ‘me’ time.” Hermione smiled at her friend kindly. Ginny bit her lip. “But keep that spell handy, will you? I don’t know how I’ll be feeling in a few weeks.”

Ginny grinned. “You got it ‘Mione.” She chanced another look at Ron. “I could just hex him a _little_.”

“ _No_ , Gin.”

“Alright fine, I get it. Ron gets to keep all his bits together.” Hermione chuckled.

From their corner of the room, Lavender Brown laughed a high, disgustingly delighted chortle that had her _shaking_ on Ron’s lap. He had a shit-eating grin plastered to his face the likes of which Ginny had never seen before.

Hermione sighed from off to Ginny’s left, and the youngest Weasley turned with disgust from her brother and focused solely on her best friend.

Hermione was beat; there was no other way to put it. Her hair, usually so vivacious and wild, looked sad, flat, and unkempt. She was thinner than she had been over the summer, and her robes weren’t neatly pressed (her usual style of wearing them – impeccably clean and neat). Her skin wasn’t as dark as it usually was (especially troublesome because they were coming out of summer break), and instead seemed light, giving her the startling impression of being very ill. And she seemed sad, and frankly _miserable_ , while her absolute prat of a brother was off gallivanting with Lavender Bloody Brown.

It sucked. Ginny had almost killed him when he told their family that he and Hermione had ended things. He had never given them a reason, and Hermione herself had steadfastly avoided the conversation for weeks on end, so Ginny didn’t have a clue as to why they were no longer together. One day they were fine and then the next…

It was hard not to speculate, though. Certainly everyone else did (and Ginny had never bothered pretending that she was above mindless gossip). She couldn’t go a single day without overhearing some conversation in some corridor about why Ron Weasley had dumped Hermione Granger.

_“I heard she got too annoying for him.”_

_“I heard she wouldn’t put out.”_

_“I heard her parents hated him.”_

_“I heard he found out about her relationship with Harry Potter.”_

Each rumour was more absurd than the last, and Ginny had no idea what to believe. She’d been half-tempted to beat it out of Ron, but her devotion to her best friend had kept her busy and violence-free ever since they got back from holiday with Hermione shockingly, confusingly single.

She hated this. She hated seeing this girl, this wonderful, powerful girl reduced to a shell of her former self because her cock of a brother couldn’t keep it in his pants and away from Lavender Brown.

“You need a boyfriend.” Ginny supplied, pulling Hermione from the depths of her reading again after just a few minutes.

“I need a moment to _think_ , Ginny.” Hermione looked up then, frown on her face as if processing the spoken information for the first time. “And _what_?”

“You need a boyfriend. A distraction. Something to take your mind off of Ron.”

“School takes my mind off of Ron.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Well _that’s_ a lie. If school took your mind off of Ron you’d be your normal self right now. And you’re not.”

Hermione pulled a face. “What I _need_ , Ginny is _not_ a new boyfriend. I need time to myself, to think and process and try to stomach looking at your brother without wanting to hex everything in striking distance, and just… time to _breathe_. And I need you to be my best friend right now, okay? My best and decidedly _female_ best friend. Ron and I aren’t speaking and Harry is always on Ron’s side about everything anyways and I need someone to talk to sometimes too, you know? Can you just be my best friend for now?”

Ginny’s bravado melted immediately. “I’m sorry. You know how I can get so thick-headed sometimes. Of _course_ I’ll be your best friend.” Hermione smiled a tight-lipped smile at her. Ginny leaned closer across the table, stared directly into Hermione’s eyes and said, earnestly, “I care about you, Hermione… honestly I do. And I _am_ looking out for you,” she reached out and laid her hand on top of the one not holding Hermione’s quill.

“Maybe you could look out for me a little less vocally?”

Ginny smiled softly. “I’ll do my very best.”

**

She made it exactly 40 hours.

“Please get a boyfriend.” Ginny slid into the empty space opposite Hermione at the breakfast table, ignoring the food piled in front of her and her empty plate in favor of watching her friend.

Hermione looked up from the book she was reading (pleasure, not business). “We’ve been here before, Gin.”

“A never ending circle.”

“I recognize that tree.”

Ginny shook her head. “Look, I’m not asking for much. Just… I don’t know… go on a few dates, maybe make out with someone a little bit. It doesn’t have to be anything serious.”

“How is that fair to the poor boy you’re asking me to Shanghai into a relationship?”

Ginny blinked at Hermione in confusion. “I hate when you make up words.”

Hermione laughed and rolled her eyes, admonishing softly, “Ginny…”

“No but seriously, why don’t you just… use ‘em and lose ‘em?”

“That’s horribly crude of you to say.”

Ginny shrugged. “What can you do?”

“I’m not going to _use_ anyone.”

Ginny leaned across the Gryffindor table. “It would make Ron absolutely _furious_ ,” she whispered.

Hermione paused from her book, her spoon half way between her bowl and her mouth. She looked up from her reading with a thoughtful expression on her face. Ginny smirked and raised an eyebrow.

“No… no that’s absurd.” Hermione shook her head vigorously to dispel the (admittedly pleasant) notion. “I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair… and besides, I’m not interested in dating right now.”

Ginny sighed and slumped back in her seat. “You’re letting him win. He’s _winning_ the breakup!”

“Everything you’re saying is ridiculous! You can’t _win_ a breakup.”

“Obviously you can, and Ron is doing it!”

“You’re being childish. Not everything is about winning and losing.”

Ginny frowned at Hermione’s nonchalance. “I can’t believe how okay you are with this. I want to kill him every time I see him.”

“Well of course I want to kill him.” Hermione said with a sigh, still pouring over her tome. “Well… not _kill_ him kill him. Maybe just… inflict bodily harm? He’s just been…” She paused for a moment and sighed deeply. “I just wish he would talk to me,” she said quietly.

Ginny frowned, unsure that she had heard her friend correctly. “Sorry, what was that?”

Hermione shook herself. “It’s not important. What _is_ important is that I refuse to be bitter about this sort of thing. It isn’t healthy. So, until the day comes where I can talk to Ronald without wanting to conjure up a pack of canaries to peck his eyes out,” Ginny giggled at that particularly fond memory, “I’m going to read my books, and eat my porridge, and ignore everything everyone else is saying.”

Hermione stopped talking, and Ginny sensed an end to all further communication on this particular subject.

And for a moment she was fine with letting it drop (honestly she was). She would have been happy enough knowing that Hermione was being strong in her own way, fighting her battles silently but determinedly. She _would_ have been, honest… only she didn’t have time to digest it all. She just needed a few minutes to sit and comprehend what Hermione said, to resign herself to a role of passive observance, to stomach the fact that maybe Hermione _wasn’t_ as torn up about this breakup as some people might like to think, but…

But mere moments after Hermione finished her spiel, who should walk in the Great Hall? None other than Ronald ‘The Biggest Idiot on the Planet’ Weasley and Lavender ‘Tart’ Brown.

And Ginny _would_ have let the whole thing drop, honestly she would have, except Ron was staring unabashedly down Lavender’s top while she giggled (in a way she surely thought was alluring) at something he must have said (that truly couldn’t have been all that clever), and Ginny had never hated her brother more.

People were looking, and whispering, and staring between him and Hermione, and Ginny couldn’t bloody _take_ how horrible her brother was being about all this, shoving his new ‘relationship’ right in Hermione’s face. In the worst possible way.

So Ginny reacted. Probably a little rash, probably without much forethought (and she would wonder about it later, what exactly made her do what she did next, but despite hours and hours of thinking and contemplation and reflection, she would never truly know _why_ she reacted the way that she did).

She stood up swiftly, her sudden movement attracting a bit of attention from a few people directly around her. Ginny took a deep breath and then vaulted over the table with an ease and grace she was quite proud of.

She landed on the bench next to Hermione, straddling the wood, and her friend started and looked up. “Ginny!” She gasped, loudly enough to draw more than a few stares. Ginny felt the eyes of the school on her (quite aware that, not only was Hermione a person of interest recently, but that her previous feat of physical prowess was pretty high-profile).

 _This is for your own good, Hermione,_ Ginny thought. “Just go with it,” was all she managed to say before she threaded her fingers through Hermione’s hair, gripped the back of her neck, and brought their lips together with bruising force.

Hermione squeaked and froze almost immediately, but Ginny did not let it deter her. She kept her right hand in Hermione’s hair and slipped her left one around the older girl’s waist, pulling them tightly together.

Hermione was suddenly very aware of three very important things. One: it was now completely, deathly quiet in the Great Hall. Two: warm, sure fingers were gently stroking her side, causing the muscles in her back to shiver and tremble. And three: Ginny Weasley’s lips were the softest thing she had ever felt in her life.

Ginny pulled away slowly, detaching their lips with a soft reverence that Hermione had never before seen in the brash woman. They stared at each other for a few long, tense, utterly silent moments before someone, out in the sea of gaping, gawking students, wolf-whistled.

“Alright get some, Weasley!” A boy shouted, and the Great Hall erupted with noise.

Hermione flushed darkly and quickly gathered her books, stuffed everything into her large book bag, and slipped away as quickly as she could, trying uselessly to remain unseen.

Ginny didn’t watch Hermione leave. She was too busy staring at her brother, who was making eye contact with her for the first time in give or take two weeks. His mouth was open, his face doing a very accurate impression of a gaping fish. His arms hung limp at his sides, his girlfriend/prostitute forgotten next to him. He was staring at Ginny with a strange expression in his eyes. Shock, awe, disbelief and… there it was, the thing that made Ginny grin with triumph and stand to finally follow Hermione out of the room.

 _Jealousy_.

When Ginny brushed past her brother while exiting, she felt him turn to watch her leave, and if there was a little extra jaunt in her step as she strolled away from the exploding and spreading gossip, then that was just as well.

**

“I’m sorry.” Her plea was met with no response. “Hermione, I’m _sorry_.”

“I’m not talking to you.”

“I _swear_ I was just trying to help.”

Hermione turned on her, her eyes flashing with a sharp fire that Ginny had not seen in a while. “You thought you were _helping_ me? What the hell, Ginny? I told you I didn’t _need_ your help. I told you I didn’t _need_ to date anyone, that I didn’t _want_ to date anyone.”

“I know, but—”

“You had absolutely _no_ right to do what you did… to… to _kiss_ me in the middle of the Great Hall like that!”

“I know, and I’m _sorry_ , but—”

“You violated our trust, Ginny. You took advantage of our friendship and you _completely_ went against everything I told you not to do! What’s going to happen tomorrow, huh? Did you think about _that_? The whole _school_ is going to know about this. What are our professors going to say?”

“Well I’m sure they have more important—”

“What’s your _mother_ going to say, Ginny?” That was enough to stop Ginny’s train of thought. “Didn’t figure that into your brilliant scheme, did you? What’s your mother going to say when Ron writes to her to tell her that you’ve been snogging girls in front of the whole school?”

Ginny bristled. “It’s no one’s business who I snog.”

“You’re _trying_ to make it everyone’s business by doing it in public, on display like… like a _fucking_ show pony!” Ginny blinked. Hermione _never_ cursed, and she never said words like ‘fucking,’ never ever. “And Merlin, Ginny, _two girls_? Have you ever heard of two girls kissing?”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, it’s not exactly _uncommon_ , Hermione.”

“It is where I come from! What am I supposed to tell my parents?”

“You don’t have to tell your parents anything! This isn’t _real_ , Hermione! You _know_ why we’re doing this.”

“I know why _you_ think you’re doing this! You’re doing this out of some misguided sense of friendship and solidarity but you’re wrong and _this_ is wrong. You think I need this but I _don’t_ , Ginny.”

“I was just trying to help you!”

“I didn’t ask you to! You’re not my girlfriend!”

“That’s the point, isn’t it? I’m _not_ your girlfriend but as far as everyone else knows, I _am_. Hermione, you should have seen Ron’s face! I thought he was going to hit me.”

Hermione shook her head, face flushed and hair wild. “Why are you trying to make everything about _him_? It isn’t! I don’t care what he thinks about this, I don’t care if he shat a brick after seeing you and I kiss, I don’t care if he _doesn’t_ care. I _don’t care_.”

Ginny took a deep breath and ran her fingers roughly through her hair. “Look, you can hate me all you want, you can hex me, curse at me, _hit_ me for all I care, but can we save our massive public breakup until Ron’s already come crawling back to you on his hands and knees begging you to come back to him?”

Hermione released a powerful breath through her nostrils. “I can’t believe you right now. You still think this is about getting him back?”

“Hermione…” But Ginny didn’t get to finish her thought. At that moment the portrait hole was pushed open and the soft murmur of student voices wafted through the wall and into the Common Room. Hermione pulled her gaze from Ginny’s, wiped at her eyes, and took a tentative but distinct step backwards.

A few people trickled in. The quiet buzz of conversation dipped in volume as the students saw who was already inside. A few people (none of whom Ginny was familiar with) cleared their throats and glanced between them. The standoff seemed unlikely to cease – no one seemed confident enough to break the awkward tension.

A seventh year girl who Ginny recognized only by sight snickered something to her friend that sounded like ‘bike’. Ginny had no idea what the girl _actually_ said, but based on the way Hermione bristled next to her, it probably wasn’t good.

“Come on Hermione, let’s go.” Ginny said, reaching behind her to grab Hermione’s hand. She wrenched the older girl along behind her. Ginny, being rather tall and fairly strong to boot, elbowed her way through the muttering crowd with little difficulty.

Out in the hallway Hermione was quick to yank her hand out of Ginny’s. “Watch what you’re doing.” She hissed, taking a step backwards and away.

Ginny huffed. “What, I can’t hold your hand now?” Hermione didn’t respond; instead she turned and made like she was about to stalk off. Ginny grabbed her arm and pulled her back around. “What the hell is your problem? This isn’t a big deal. It was only a kiss.”

“You can’t just go around _kissing_ random people, Ginny. That isn’t the way things work.”

“Okay, honestly? You’re freaking out over something that really shouldn’t be freaked out about. I kissed you – _once_. It was nice, or whatever. The point is it didn’t mean anything to me and it _certainly_ didn’t mean anything to you, so why don’t we just… I don’t know… _pretend_ to like each other so that my prat of a brother gets what he deserves?”

“And how, exactly, is me pretending to date you going to stick it to him?”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Am I even speaking English anymore? I _told_ you. _Jealousy_.”

“I don’t care if he’s jealous!”

“Merlin Hermione, at this point it doesn’t make any difference! People are going to be talking about this, and despite how hard you may try to deny it, no one is going to believe you.”

“But I’ll be telling—”

Ginny scoffed. “You think the truth matters? The entire school saw us snog; they know _something’s_ up. Either way, come tomorrow, people are going to think we’re together. Maybe not _together_ together, but at least snogging occasionally… and maybe shagging.”

“Ginny!” Hermione exclaimed, appalled.

“Oh whatever. Look, if you want to ‘break up’ with me, that’s fine. Do whatever you like. But I seriously think you should consider waiting a month or two. Let it sink in. Let Ron see that you don’t need him, that you have _never_ needed him, and that he can go fuck himself for all you care.”

“But I don’t want—”

“And _then_ ,” Ginny interrupted, “when he’s gotten it through that thick skull of his that you’re fit and desirable and that you in no way need him to feel validated about yourself, he’ll come back to you on bended knee begging you to take him back. Because you’re the best thing that ever happened to him, and he may not realize it, but _I_ certainly do. And when all of that happens you can dump me hard and fast in front of everyone, and then you and Ron can ride your broomsticks off into the sunset together.” Hermione pulled a face. Ginny rolled her eyes. “Or you can ride a hippogriff into the sunset, because I know you hate brooms.”

Hermione squinted slightly, a pondering expression forefront on her face. “That… actually sounds… not _terrible_.”

“High praise coming from you.” Hermione rolled her eyes. “But I know this will work, because I am a genius. So just… I don’t know… walk to class with me, let me hold your books for you, hold my hand at dinner, maybe kiss me on the cheek before you go to bed.” Hermione looked like she was about to interrupt, but Ginny wouldn’t let her. “It doesn’t have to be big, it doesn’t have to be grand. It just has to be _something_. We just have to look like we’re a couple. Do you think that’ll kill you, or are you fine with playing along with all of this?”

Hermione was silent for a moment. “And your mother?”

Ginny shrugged. “I’ll tell her we’re together, if she asks, or if the time comes that I see her before our fake ‘break up’. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“She won’t be… upset with you? Or… I don’t know… disappointed?”

Ginny pulled a strange face. “Why would she be disappointed?”

“Look, Ginny…” Hermione took a deep breath and one step forwards. “I know that you don’t know this, and I guess things are different here in the wizarding world, but… this isn’t going to be an easy thing for us. I hope you know that. Here it might not be that strange to see two girls in a relationship, but… well it’s not exactly _allowed_ in the Muggle world.”

Ginny blinked. “It isn’t ‘ _allowed’_? How can they not ‘ _allow’_ it?”

“It’s not… it isn’t _normal_. It isn’t the normal thing for people to do.”

“So that’s what makes you so uncomfortable about this?” Ginny asked, affronted. “You think that this isn’t _normal_? What if I like girls, Hermione? What if I want to date them? Would you not talk to me anymore because I’m not ‘ _normal’_?”

“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous! I have no problem with it, but some people definitely do… like that girl inside who called us ‘dykes’.”

“Hermione I _told_ you that when you make up words—”

Hermione sighed. “I didn’t make that up, Ginny, and I’m not making this up. Prejudice is a hard thing to get rid of, and anyone who’s spent a good deal of time with Muggles may be… _unwilling_ to accept our new ‘relationship’.” She used her hands to put unnecessary air-quotes around the last word.

“Well for starters, I think you need to remember that nothing is going to change in our _actual_ relationship. This is all just pretend. But either way, why would anyone care? What would us fake dating have to do with them?”

“Well _I_ don’t know, but some people don’t exactly like it.” Hermione sighed. “Look, I’m just saying that… if you want to do this, you’re going to have to start making some adjustments. You’re going to have to be prepared for the talks, and the looks… some people are going to insult you, and some people are going to hate you. You have to be ready for that.”

“I don’t…” Ginny paused for a second. “Look Hermione, I don’t _care_ what anyone says. I don’t care what people think about me. I love you. You’re my best friend. So please… pretend to go out with me?” She grinned, arms spread open in offering. “Let me help you out. Let me be the best fake girlfriend you’ve ever had.”

Hermione giggled. “Alright. Fine. I’ll pretend to be your girlfriend.”

“Excellent.”

“Just… warn me before you kiss me next time?”

“Promise.” Ginny said with a devilish grin on her face. This was going to be good. Ron wasn’t going to know what to do with himself.

**

That evening, after a long day of avoiding confrontation and conversation with anyone and everyone, Hermione and Ginny were paused outside of the Gryffindor Common Room. The Fat Lady stared at the pair of them from inside her picture frame, an unamused scowl on her face.

Ginny cleared her throat. “So… Are you going to say the password, or—?”

“I don’t want to go in there.” Hermione said softly. The Fat Lady snorted at her. “I’m serious, Ginny, I don’t. I don’t want to deal with… and oh God I share a dorm with Lavender and Parvati, what am I…”

“Then we won’t.” Ginny said simply. “We won’t go inside. Come on, I think I have an idea where we can go.”

“You’re a bloody waste of time, all of you students!” The portrait shouted after them as they dashed away. “A bloody waste of my valuable time!”

“Ignore her.” Ginny said with an eye roll. “All she’s doing is spewing hot air. She wouldn’t know what to do without all of us.” Hermione laughed. Ginny smiled.

“Where are we going, then?”

“The only place two people can go to sleep if they don’t want to be in their house.”

Hermione quirked an eyebrow as she followed Ginny through long, dark hallways. “Oddly that didn’t help much with letting me know where we’re off to.”

Ginny laughed. “The Room of Requirement.”

“Ginny!” Hermione scolded, “We can’t sleep _there_.”

“Why not? It’s not like someone else is using it.”

“I just… do you really think…?” Hermione paused as they came to the familiar span of empty wall, across from the tapestry of the dancing troll. Hermione eyed the stones with a pensive look on her face. “The last time we were here…”

Ginny squeezed her hand, ever so slightly. “I know. Umbridge, the DA, the Department of Mysteries…”

“Feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?” Hermione whispered.

Ginny nodded. “Like it happened to different people.”

They stood there, side by side in their memories and in the recollection of days long since passed. It took a few moments for Ginny to untangle their hands and start her pacing, but when she did Hermione let her go without a fight.

“So I’ll just… ask for a couple of beds and then we’ll go to sleep and we’ll get up tomorrow and worry about everything else. It’s no use being stressed tonight when we don’t have to be.” Ginny smiled when the door materialized after her third time passing in front of the wall. “You need some decent sleep anyways. And I don’t mind staying here, honest.”

“You’re a good friend, Ginny.”

“I want you to remember this moment when you think about how furious you were at me only a few hours ago. I’m likely to piss you off in the future, so just please remember that I am, indeed, a good friend.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous. I was furious with you because you caught me by surprise earlier and kissed me without asking,” Hermione shot Ginny a look, “which I still haven’t totally forgiven you for, by the way. Not because you’re a bad friend.”

Ginny smiled but did not respond, choosing instead to reach out in front of her and push open the door.

The door swung open. Inside was a rather small room. In the center sat a large bed not unlike those found in the Gryffindor dorms, with crimson sheets and white pillows and a canopy stretched above. A modest fire cracked from a corner fireplace, providing gentle heat to the otherwise dark space.

“You’re acting like it was the most dreadful experience of your life.” Ginny whined as she trailed after her friend into the newly-appeared bedroom. “I have it on good authority that I am actually quite a decent kisser.” Ginny pulled her robes over her head and kicked off her trousers, leaving her in just a t-shirt and pants (but Hermione had seen her in less so she wasn’t bothered). She slipped into the bed and threw back the covers, grinning and patting the empty space next to her. “You can’t have _detested_ it.”

Hermione looked down, the faint hint of a blush sweeping up her cheeks to colour them only slightly. “Well… it wasn’t _horrible_.”

Ginny snorted and threw herself onto her back, arms tucked under her head. “You liked it, just the littlest bit. Admit it.”

Hermione huffed and yanked her sweater over her head, thoroughly mussing up already untidy hair. She grumbled as she kicked off her shoes and flopped onto her back too, mirroring Ginny’s position, eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling. “I will do no such thing.”

Ginny laughed and shook her head, a fond smile on her lips. “Goodnight Hermione.”

“I’ll probably be mad at you again in the morning.”

“Well then let’s hope we sleep until the afternoon.”

**

Harry Potter awoke to an empty dormitory. He sat up in bed, rubbing tiredly at his eyes before he slipped his glasses onto the bridge of his nose. He frowned at the emptiness around him. He hadn’t a clue where Seamus, Dean, and Neville had gotten to already — usually he was one of the first awake, so to rise with the sun already high in the sky and not a person in sight, Harry was more than a little confused. Then again, he _had_ tossed and turned for much of the night; after witnessing Hermione and Ginny kiss at breakfast, he had spent much of the day on a hunt for his two friends and avoiding Ron. He didn’t want to have to deal with Ron’s sour mood any longer than he had to, and he was also worried about how Hermione was handling Ginny just… _outing_ them like that, so abruptly and seemingly without consent.

He was worried for an entire day, and it didn’t help his sleep one bit.

Harry ran a hand through his hair in a helpless attempt to quash the untidiness and threw on the first clothes he found. He rushed down the stairs, laces undone and fighting with the crooked tie around his neck, and he almost barreled over a loitering Ron Weasley, who looked as if he had been perched at the bottom of the stairs waiting for Harry to come down for quite some time.

“Oh!” Harry exclaimed, not unkindly. “Hello Ron. Care for some breakfast?”

Ron nodded but otherwise did not respond. Harry cleared his throat uncomfortably, finally managing to correct his tie (but ignoring his trainers) while the two of them moved silently out into the corridor.

“So, um…” Harry shifted awkwardly on his feet, “You seen Ginny or Hermione yet?” He asked warily.

Ron glowered. “Nope,” he bit out, “I haven’t see them since breakfast yesterday.”

Harry chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. “Speaking of which… that was some breakfast then, wasn’t it?” He hoped to understand how Ron was feeling about the whole… ex-girlfriend dating his sister thing. He knew that Ron wouldn’t be exactly ecstatic about it, but he still hoped to gain a little insight. Test the waters, as it were. Maybe if he could let Ron know that he was totally okay with the situation, Ron would start to feel the same way.

But then Ron scoffed, and Harry knew that he had been too optimistic to ever think that Ron would have a clear head about anything.

Harry cleared his throat and didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say to break the suddenly uncomfortable silence that originated between them, so he didn’t say anything at all.

Ron was the one to finally speak. Harry almost wished he hadn’t. “Lavender said Parvati said Seamus said that they left in a hurry,” Ron said under his breath. “Probably off to get some ‘ _private tim_ e’.” The words were said with no small amount of disdain.

“Your bookworm friend and her redheaded pal?” A voice cut through their conversation. Harry and Ron turned on the Fat Lady, eyes wide with rapt attention. “They stopped by last night, disrupting my private reflection time,” she said with an annoyed sigh, “but for some reason, they didn’t want to go in. Left almost immediately.” She sniffed. “I’d check the Astronomy Tower. That’s usually where students go to… ahem,” she looked away, “ _fornicate_.”

Harry and Ron flushed deep shades of crimson. “Oh I _seriously_ don’t want to think about that,” Harry mumbled under his breath. Ron seemed to turn green (with sickness or with jealousy Harry could not tell).

“They looked like they were going to… do _that_?” Ron asked in a disgruntled whisper.

The Fat Lady shrugged. “The taller one led the bushy-haired one off by the hand, and they were speaking _very_ quietly _very_ close together…” her smile seemed to turn malicious, “I’ve seen this before, boys, and let me tell you: it’s not a big surprise to me that the whole school is talking about it.”

“They’re _what_?” Ron practically yelled. “The whole bloody _school_ is talking about my sister and—” His voice choked off, as if he physically could not bring himself to utter the words. “I swear to Merlin when I see Hermione…”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit hypocritical?” Harry ventured timidly.

Ron whipped around on him. His eyes glinted angrily in the early morning light. “Did you say something?” He hissed.

Harry rolled his eyes. His friends were so immature, sometimes. “I _said_ ,” he emphasized, “don’t you think that’s a bit hypocritical? You being all angry at Hermione when you’re with Lavender, I mean.”

Ron snorted. “No it isn’t bloody ‘ _hypocritical’_ ,” he sneered. “I can be as bloody angry as I want to, can’t I? I mean, Merlin, she’s _my_ bloody girlfriend.”

“No she isn’t.” Harry reminded him firmly. “She is _not_ your girlfriend. You two broke up, for reasons no one has yet been made privy to, and probably because — and I’m sorry about this Ron but, if past experience indicates — it was _probably_ because you were a wanker. And I seem to recall that you moved on rather quickly to someone else. Hermione was just barely out the door and you were off with some other girl.”

Ron turned crimson, but not the bright flush of embarrassment that Harry was used to, rather the light tint of anger boiling over. “Now you’re defending her, are you?”

“Well, yeah, I guess I am. You’re being completely unfair to her, Ron. I love you, and I love Hermione, and you’re both like family to me, but you’re being a right prick about this whole thing. You can’t be pissy with her just because she’s found someone else, because if I remember correctly so have you.”

“I can’t believe you’re taking her side in all this.”

“I’m not taking _sides_!” Harry was quick to clarify. “I’m not siding with one of you over the other. I’m just saying that this is an unfair thing of you to do. I’m being perfectly neutral about the whole situation.”

“How _can_ you be?” Ron yelled. They were beginning to draw a crowd. Harry shifted uncomfortably as a group of gawking second years loitered around, packing the sides and staring with hungry curiosity. “How can you be neutral about this? Fuck Harry, my ex-girlfriend is messing about with my _sister_. That has to be like… against the law or something!”

“I’m pretty sure that isn’t—”

“And what about _you_?” Ron yelled, at this point desperate to gain an ally at whatever cost. “I thought you fancied Ginny!”

Harry blushed a little. “Well I mean… I don’t know if _fancy_ is the right word… certainly she’s very beautiful…”

Ron punched him on the shoulder, hard. “That’s my sister, you git!”

“ _Ow_ Ron, what the hell? You brought it up!”

“But still… don’t talk about her like that!”

Harry shook his head. “I’m not talking to you about this again until you’ve calmed down. Why don’t you go for a fly or something? Or a run? Burn some steam off before you—”

Ron huffed and spun on his heel, effectively cutting Harry off abruptly. “I’m going to find them,” he stated with firm determination.

“You leave Ginny and Hermione alone!” Harry half-yelled, trailing after his friend. Ron ignored him, pushing his way through the group of chattering second years as if he didn’t even see them. “Ron I mean it!” Harry tried again.

When Ron seemed absolutely determined to ignore Harry’s warning (his forward progress not even slowing), Harry took some drastic measures.

Harry drew his wand and gave it one strong flick. Ron stumbled and crashed to the ground, his legs bound tightly with a rope that hadn’t been there moments before.

The second years stood frozen, gaping after witnessing the Boy Who Lived hex his best friend.

Ron managed to flop himself onto his back, which gave him enough opportunity to not only glare at Harry, but also to pull out his own wand.

He growled and shot a stinging hex at Harry’s face, which was only narrowly blocked. Harry fired back a disarming spell that knocked Ron’s already prone body back a few dozen yards.

Ron let out a yell of fury, released his legs, and leapt to his feet. The hallway lit up with the bright explosions of hexes being fired while students ran every which way for a professor or the headmaster.

It was upon this scene that Professor McGonagall appeared only a few short minutes later, shocked, stunned, and more than a little disgruntled at what she was witnessing.

“Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley… ENOUGH!” With a single wave of her own wand, both the boys were disarmed and frozen in place.

Harry and Ron panted, glaring at each other as their head of house began to yell about “setting a poor example” and “hooligan behavior.”

Ron was sporting a bloody nose, and Harry had a large gash on his forehead that was dripping blood down onto the left lens on his glasses, clouding his vision. Ron was also breaking out in a nasty case of what looked like chicken pox, while Harry’s wand arm was swollen to twice its normal size.

“You two are supposed to be _friends_! And you, Mr. Weasley, a _prefect_!” McGonagall glowered at the pair of them. “You are _not_ the students I expected to find dueling in a hallway on a Wednesday morning. Shame on the pair of you. And twenty-five points from Gryffindor _each_.” The students that had gathered in the hallway to watch the duel groaned, and a few even muttered expletives under their breath at the two boys, who only continued to give each other sour looks.

McGonagall looked about ready to throw a fit. “My office. _Immediately_.” She ground out the last word through clenched teeth, and even if Harry and Ron had had control of their own bodies, they would not have dared disobey her.

**

“Now _what_ ,” McGonagall began when all three of them were seated awkwardly in her office, Harry and Ron steadfastly refusing to look at each other, “pray tell, were the two of you _thinking_ , engaging in a duel like that outside of class where anyone could have walked by and been hit?” She glared at them from over her spectacles, and Harry wished more than anything that right in this moment he could sink into his chair and cease to exist. “Do you realize how _serious_ this could have been?” McGonagall snapped. “Your foolish, childish, _immature_ behavior has me in the mindset to relieve the _both_ of you of your duties!”

 _That_ got Harry and Ron’s attention the way nothing else could have.

“But… what do you mean, Professor?” Harry asked nervously, finally taking the time to wipe the blood from his glasses.

“I _mean_ ,” McGonagall said haughtily, looking down her nose at him as if he were something foul she had stepped in walking back from the Quidditch Pitch, “that perhaps you and Mr. Weasley are not mature enough to take on all of the responsibilities of being a Quidditch Captain and Prefect.” Ron and Harry turned pale. “Certainly such childish acts do not reflect highly on my and Professor Dumbledore’s assertions to the other staff members that, despite all of the hardships you both have faced throughout your lives, these leadership opportunities would allow you to _rise_ to the occasion and _mature_. We assured the other heads of house that you would not disappoint us, and that when situation demanded it you would both be willing to put the needs of the other students over your own.” Harry and Ron stared down at their laps. “Clearly we were _wrong_.” McGonagall said coldly, eyeing the two young men before her. “Now what on _earth_ gave you the idea that it would be okay to duel—?”

“Ron was going to do something I didn’t agree with.” Harry cut in quickly, hoping that that would be explanation enough.

McGonagall stared at him in utter disbelief. “Then, as I’m sure someone taught you in your primary education Mr. Potter, it is appropriate to express one’s disapproval with _words_ , like a _civilized_ creature who has undergone five years of Muggle education and then an additional five and a half of _wizarding_ education! Or have you forgotten the basis of humane interaction in the few months since you have turned sixteen?”

Harry blushed a deep crimson. “I did it for his own good, really. He was going to get into a fight with Hermione and Ginny and really he would have turned out a lot worse if that had happened so I did him a favor. He should be thanking me.”

McGonagall blinked at him. “What do Ms. Granger and Ms. Weasley have to do with all of this?”

Ron glared down at his hands. Harry looked around the room uncomfortably.

“I believe,” a tired, calm voice said from the doorway, “that Harry is referring to Ms. Granger and Ms. Weasley’s new romantic relationship. Isn’t that right, Harry?”

Harry looked up into the eyes of the Headmaster he had barely seen in weeks. Ever since they had gone to meet Slughorn that summer, Dumbledore had been mysteriously and conspicuously absent from Harry’s life and studies — despite promises of private lessons and one-on-one meetings. Dumbledore looked older than he had a month ago, and tired, and very much like he hadn’t slept in a long time.

“How was your trip, Headmaster?” McGonagall asked, standing from behind her desk and giving Dumbledore a polite nod. He waved her back down.

“It was fine, Minerva, thank you.” He turned his sharp eyes to Harry and Ron. “Already getting in trouble again I see, Mr. Potter. I’ve only been gone a few days.” There was an amused twinkle in the Headmaster’s eye that made Harry believe he was _not_ about to be yelled at by one of the men he admired most in the world. It was a small comfort.

“What is this about Ms. Granger and Ms. Weasley?” McGonagall asked.

“I believe Ronald here,” and with that Dumbledore laid his (healthy) hand upon Ron’s shoulder, causing the younger man to shift uncomfortably, “had a rather unfortunate reaction to the discovery that one of his best friends is dating his younger sister.”

McGonagall, to her credit, only let her eyebrows raise a hair, in the barest show of perfunctory curiosity, with little to no surprise appearing anywhere else on her features. “An unfortunate reaction?” She questioned.

Dumbledore chuckled. “Something like that.” His hand tightened on Ron’s shoulder, imperceptible to anyone who was watching them, but enough for Ron to know that this was his warning: _Cut the shit, man up, and stop being an ignorant prick,_ though perhaps not in those exact words. Either way, it was clear to Ron now that Dumbledore was going to be keeping an eye on him. And that never ended out well.

“And Mr. Potter was…?”

“I believe he was defending his friend’s honor.” Dumbledore winked at Harry. “Or something akin to that.”

Harry nodded, his eyes still averted to his lap.

McGonagall eyed him shrewdly. “Five points to Gryffindor.” She said, so nonchalantly that if Ron’s head had not whipped up in disbelief at that exact moment, Harry may have thought he imagined it. “Now, both of you have a breakfast to attend.” She waved them away, and the two boys hastily stood and made for the door. “Go to the Hospital Wing first; we don’t need any young students getting sick in their morning porridge over the sight of you. And, boys?” She stopped them suddenly just as they were slipping from the room. “The next time I find the two of you mid-brawl, I will not be so kind. Now, get yourselves cleaned up. I expect you both in my class in one hour, _on time_.”

**

“You got into a _fight_? With _Ron_?” Hermione gaped at him.

She had stormed down to the Quidditch pitch half an hour ago (Ron was pettily sitting practice out, pretending he was in bed sick so as not to face Harry or his sister or the team. Hermione wasn’t too bothered about this because it also meant _she_ didn’t have to see him). She had stood outside of the changing tent, impatiently tapping her foot as player after player walked past her with little head tilts of greeting and acknowledgement. (When Ginny had exited — almost last — she had quirked an eyebrow at Hermione in question. “You here to see me?” She had asked, but Hermione had shaken her head. “Here to yell at Harry, actually.” Ginny had chuckled and wished her luck).

Harry stood in front of her now, hair dirty and wild from his broom and an ugly red mark beneath his hairline that hadn’t totally healed yet. Hermione stared at him, lost for words, furious, and confused all at once. “Harry why on _Earth_ would you—?”

“He was being an _arse_ , Hermione, you should have heard him.”

“He’s your _best friend_ , Harry, you shouldn’t have—”

“Yeah well you’re my best friend too.” Harry cut her off quickly. “Everyone always expects me to take Ron’s side, you know? That’s always the way it goes. People think, ‘Oh Hermione and Ron are in a fight, guess she won’t talk to Harry either now’ and that’s messed up.”

Hermione stammered for a few moments, finally managing to let out a soft, emphatic, “ _Harry_ …” before she was silenced again.

Harry reached out and grabbed her hand and squeezed her fingers tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me about you and Ginny?” He asked her softly. “Did you… did you think I would be mad at you? That I wouldn’t…” He trailed off and seemed to clamor helplessly for words for several long seconds. “I know what the Muggle world’s like, Hermione,” he continued softly, almost in a whisper even though they were alone where they stood, outside in the crisp November air surrounded by golden trees and dying grass and cool wind. “I know that… that Muggles don’t exactly like relationships between…” a long pause and a shake of his head, “but I’m _different_ , you know? I don’t care if you’re dating… if you’re…” he trailed off, blushing. “Boy we really don’t talk about this stuff, you and I, do we?”

Hermione smiled despite her teary eyes and shook her head ruefully. “No we don’t, but it’s sweet that you’re trying.” She pulled him into a tight hug. “Thank you.”

“You could have told me.” He whispered, and Hermione nodded against his cheek, still wrapped in his warm embrace.

“I know. I know I could have. I guess…” She trailed off. She didn’t want to lie to Harry, she _didn’t_ , not when he was being so incredible and supportive and _fighting_ Ron but… but she couldn’t have both of her best friends furious at her. She couldn’t have him lying to Ron, too. She couldn’t tell him that her whole relationship with Ginny wasn’t real. So she tried to say as little as possible. “It was all so sudden,” she supplied instead. “We didn’t really… we didn’t really _talk_ about it, at first,” and she was glad her face was buried in his shoulder so he wouldn’t have to see her expression. She had always been a dreadful liar, and even though what she was saying was _technically_ true, the deceit tasted foul on her tongue.

“I love you, Hermione, no matter what.” He squeezed her once more and took a step back and she was startled to see he had tears welling at the corners of his eyes just like she did. He shook himself. “I’m happy that you’re happy. I’m _not_ happy that Ron is being a dick, but… but if Ginny makes you happy, then that’s all that I want. You’re my best friend,” he reiterated emphatically.

Hermione smiled and tried very hard to make it genuine, like the smile of a woman who was falling in love and not the smile of a woman who was standing in front of her best friend and fabricating a lesbian romance to get back at her ex.

 _God_ she was a terrible person.

“Ginny’s lovely.” She said, to try and dodge the ‘as long as she makes you happy’ line that was glaring uncomfortably at her from the space and silence between them. “And she keeps me on my toes.”

Harry laughed and threw an arm around Hermione’s shoulders, leading her back into the castle. “Well I should hope so; Ron and I lost us almost 50 house points in that fight and I wouldn’t want that to be for nothing.”

“You did _what_!?”

Harry grimaced and only looked at Hermione from the corner of his eye. He could still feel her glare, could practically _see_ the steam billowing out of her ears. “Yeah um… McGonagall sort of… well…”

Hermione groaned. “Harry you know I’m the _only_ one who earns points during lessons! We’ll be behind for the rest of term!”

“What about that Philosopher’s Stone business? I got us points then!”

“That was _First Year_!” She pulled out from under his arm and started whacking him on the shoulder.

“Quidditch is points too Hermione!” He shouted, laughing as he dodged her feeble blows.

She glared at him. “You lot and your bloody Quidditch! Quidditch isn’t the whole world. What about studying, what about _school_?”

“Ack – don’t hit me! I defended your honour!”

“I didn’t ask you to!”

“Ouch, Hermione, ouch!” Harry yelled but couldn’t fight the laughter bubbling inside of him. His protests were weak, his attempts to evade her half-hearted at best, and when the two of them finally made it into the castle (even though Harry was rubbing ruefully at his sore shoulder), Hermione was wind-swept and grinning, tucked happily under Harry’s arm, and so he found he was quite proud of himself. He would let her admonish him until she went blue in the face, so long as she smiled at the end.

Ron was a real prat, and sometimes a shite best friend, but Harry would try his damndest to make up for that.

Plus, Hermione had spent the past 6 years editing his garbage essays, so… he figured the least he could do was make her smile.

**

They had been at it for one week.

If Ginny was being honest (and even _she_ knew she didn’t have the greatest track record of truth-telling), this whole ‘fake dating’ thing was turning out to be a lot… _easier_ than she expected. It wasn’t very much of a leap — in terms of personal interaction between her and Hermione, at least — from friends to ‘more than friends’. Really the only significant difference was the light, brushing kisses they exchanged every so often (truthfully more _often_ than ‘so often’).

And fuck it all if Ginny wasn’t absolutely _delighted_ by it. She loved kissing Hermione — and it _had_ been a while since she had dated anyone — and Hermione’s lips were always so soft and she always smelled like the best shampoo in the world and Ginny kept having to shake herself, and shout reminders in her mind that she wasn’t really at all supposed to be enjoying this as much as she was. She was doing this for Hermione, not for herself.

Still, she found herself searching for excuses to touch and kiss Hermione whenever she could.

She felt like she was being horribly transparent but if she was, Hermione never called her on it — she was either _very_ lucky or had a very polite best friend.

She wasn’t sure which was worse.

Kissing wasn’t that big of a deal, anyways. And it wasn’t _really_ kissing… there were no tongues involved, no grasping hands, no heavy breaths and shaking fingers and unbuttoned clothes, but… But. But Ginny couldn’t help but think about that, about… about shaking fingers and heavy breaths and unbuttoned clothes and grasping hands and tongues and _Hermione_ and…

And she was fucked. Plain and simple.

Kissing Hermione wasn’t really… it wasn’t crazy or strange or different. Perhaps that was the problem. It didn’t send shivers down her spine or cause fireworks to explode behind her eyes.

But it made her want _more_. And she felt that that was probably much more dangerous.

And Ginny had kissed a fair number of people — boyfriends and platonic friends after a little too much to drink and boys and girls and people who she cared deeply for and people who she really didn’t know at all — but none of them had ever made her _want_ the way that Hermione made her want for… for what? What _did_ she want? She didn’t even know.

But it was something.

And that scared her.

Ginny slumped down in the armchair next to Hermione’s, tired and a little sweaty and cheeks red form the wind of the pitch.

Hermione looked up from her book and smiled. Ginny’s stomach flipped but she pushed it down. “I’m starved.”

Hermione glanced down at her watch and started. “Goodness, is it already six?”

“How long have you been sitting here, ‘Mione?” Ginny asked, not unkindly.

“Must be about five hours now.” Ginny’s eyes widened and Hermione blushed, looking down at her hands, “I guess I lost track of time.”

“Well come on then,” Ginny leapt from her seat and held a hand out for Hermione to grab, “we’ve got to make sure you’re well fed. Can’t be the brightest witch of your age if you’re collapsing from hunger pains and exhaustion.”

Hermione laughed but allowed Ginny to drag her to her feet. “You’re only saying that so I’ll eat dinner with you.”

“Well I’m sorry that I don’t like to eat alone.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Neville and Luna are wonderful company.”

“Neville and Luna are _interesting_ company, Hermione. I don’t know if I’d say ‘wonderful.’”

Hermione scoffed as they climbed through the portrait hole. “Nonsense, they’re your best friends.”

“Excuse you I believe you hold that honour.”

Hermione smacked her shoulder. “It isn’t a competition. You can have more than one best friend. Just look at me and—” She cut herself off abruptly, and the awkward silence, the heavy words left unsaid between them caused Ginny to shift uncomfortably and glance to the side.

“Ron will come around, Hermione,” she said quietly.

Hermione sighed and slipped her fingers between Ginny’s own, lacing their hands together tightly. “I hope so. I hate not talking to him.”

Ginny felt something sink in her stomach, but then again the staircase they were on _had_ just decided to spring forward and propel them downwards so she ignored the feeling. “You really miss him don’t you?”

Hermione looked off to the side, watching the floors slip by them as they were lowered towards the ground floor. “He’s one of my best friends.”

Ginny nodded and squeezed Hermione’s fingers but said no more. She didn’t know what to say… she didn’t know if she could come up with anything decent enough to lift Hermione’s spirits.

So she didn’t say anything. Instead, she watched the people in the paintings on the wall walk around talking to each other. They were sword fighting, arguing, gambling, and otherwise paying the two of them no mind. Though in fairness, the portraits rarely paid attention to the students who walked in front of them.

Ginny wondered how it would feel, to be a painting. It must be incredibly dull. But then again, did the paintings _know_ they were paintings? Did they know time and boredom like humans? Did they stare out from their frames and long to be alive again?

Certainly they didn’t feel the pressures of regular humanity, of school and Quidditch and House Cups and pretending to date your best friend to annoy your brother. Certainly they didn’t know familial pressure like Ginny did; after all, she was the youngest — and last — Weasley to go through Hogwarts (until her brothers started having children, at least, and she found _that_ unlikely for at least the near future). Charlie and Fred and George were all amazing Quidditch players while they were at Hogwarts; Percy and Bill were Head Boy their seventh year; after graduation all of her brothers had gone on to amazing careers, for Merlin’s sake. Charlie was in Romania studying and caring for dragons, Bill worked at the largest wizarding bank in England, Fred and George had started their own business to monstrous success, and even Percy (the git) worked for the Ministry of Magic. Even Ron, goddamn him, was a decent enough Quidditch player (when he didn’t think about it) and was best friends with the Boy Who Lived.

What was Ginny supposed to do? How was she supposed to keep up with that legacy?

How was she — the youngest girl in a family of boys — supposed to make her parents proud?

She sighed a heavy sigh and Hermione squeezed her hand just slightly. Ginny looked to her friend’s face; it was a little sad around the eyes but otherwise perfectly expressionless. Hermione looked like, for once in her life, her head wasn’t filled with spinning and whirling ideas. Ginny’s eyes traced the shape of her nose, the curve of her lips, studied the colour in her cheeks and realized — with perhaps more surprise than she should have — that Hermione was _beautiful_.

“Thank you,” she said suddenly, breaking Hermione out of her comfortable silence.

They were approaching the Great Hall now, and Hermione paused to turn, puzzled, and gazed at Ginny’s unreadable expression. “For what?”

Ginny shrugged. “I’m kind of crazy; and I know that about myself. I’m not the easiest person to be friends with. So thank you, for… for being my friend.”

Hermione smiled and pulled her forward to get some dinner. Ginny found that she didn’t mind being dragged around by Hermione in the slightest.

**

Hermione was biting her lower lip, her leg shaking and pulsing with poorly-disguised nervousness. She picked at a bit of dried skin on the nail of her right thumb and tried desperately to work up an appetite.

A body slid into the empty space across from her and Hermione looked up, her expression softening considerably when she recognized the blinking blue eyes and flowing blonde hair of Luna Lovegood, sporting a ridiculous lion hat that really should surprise Hermione more than it does.

“Hello, Luna,” she said, her teeth abandoning her lip and her hand grasping for her fork. She really should eat something, she recognized this, but she was just so… what even was she feeling? Nervous? Excited? Scared?

“Hello, Hermione. You look lovely today.”

Hermione couldn’t help the startled expression that took over her face. She glanced down at her outfit — certainly nothing special — but managed a croaked, “Thanks, Luna,” either way.

Luna nodded and piled some food on her plate. Hermione scrambled around in her head for something — _anything_ — to talk about, but Luna (perhaps subconsciously) came to her rescue. “You seem nervous today, Hermione.”

“Do I?” She asked, feigning ignorance, but she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Yes, I imagine the first match of the year must be stressful for you.”

“And why is that?”

“Well…” Luna paused to take a large drink from her goblet, “Ron and Harry and Ginny are all playing. Your ex-boyfriend and best friend and girlfriend, all flying about on brooms hundreds of feet in the air with seven people trying to knock them off, hitting balls at them and otherwise—”

“No Luna, you’re quite right, I suppose I am nervous,” Hermione attempted to cut her off quickly, feeling herself get a little queasy. “God why do they all have to play bloody Quidditch?”

“I like Quidditch,” Luna said dreamily, playing with the mane on her lion’s head hat, “I think organized sports are wonderful.”

“And dangerous,” Hermione muttered and Luna hummed in agreement.

“Yes, I suppose that too.”

Hermione found words spilling from her mouth quite of their own volition and certainly without her permission. “And every year,” she huffed stubbornly, “another one of them goes and gets on that bloody team and now it’s just me, in the stands, watching them try to kill each other every damned game and there isn’t even anyone I can… I can watch with.”

Luna smiled at her (Hermione wondered what exactly about her previous statement could have prompted a smile from Luna — but then again she’s never been the most predictable of people) and said, “You can watch with me and Neville, Hermione. We’ll shout the loudest whenever they do something well.”

Hermione smiled, perhaps in spite of herself. “I think I would like that very much.”

Luna nodded. “Good; I don’t want Hufflepuff to win this game.”

“Shouldn’t you, though? I mean, Hufflepuff isn’t as good as the Gryffindor team, you know, and so… logically you should want to root for the team that is statistically the least likely to beat your own team. Ravenclaw will probably trounce Hufflepuff in their upcoming match, and Gryffindor will be much tougher competition.”

Luna smiled at her again and Hermione _really_ couldn’t understand what she was smiling so often about. “Quidditch isn’t all about facts and statistics, Hermione. It’s about house spirit. Besides, I don’t have any friends in Hufflepuff. I’d much rather if my friends won.”

“Well that doesn’t make any sense,” Hermione grumbled.

“Most things don’t make any sense at all, Hermione.”

Hermione blinked across the table as her friend went back to her food and wondered, silently (not for the first _or_ last time), just exactly how wise Luna Lovegood was under her confusing ‘imaginary magical creatures’ façade.

Hermione made a note in her head to stop judging Luna so harshly by standards which she clearly did not prescribe to.

Hermione made a note to stop trying to fit everyone into the perfect little boxes in her head.

Starting with Luna, and Neville, and Ron even, and Ginny…

And Ginny. Ginny could never fit into just one category in her head. She was a gifted witch, an excellent charms caster, the youngest child and only girl in a huge family of brothers, a Quidditch player, a brilliant woman, a friend, a fake girlfriend…

No, Hermione was sure of it, she would work harder to shuck labels. After all, real people weren’t one-dimensional like those women in those horrible books Lavender and Parvati were always giggling about behind the canopy of their beds in the dorm. Real people were… they were more.

Luna was more than “Looney.” Ginny was more than—

“Are you sitting with us at the match, Hermione?” Neville asked loudly as he slumped into the seat next to her. Hermione jumped and whipped around to face him. He was grinning at her, his face painted crimson and gold, and Hermione had to shake herself and blink a few times before she could smile sincerely.

“Yes; Luna invited me.”

Neville smiled and rubbed his hands together before grabbing for the nearest dishes of food. “Excellent. We’re going to destroy Hufflepuff today, I just know it.”

Luna beamed at him. “We certainly will.”

“You excited to cheer on your girl?” Neville asked around his mouthful of sausage.

Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but Luna cut in before she could, saying, “Oh Hermione is nervous about today. She doesn’t want Ginny to get hurt.”

Hermione flushed despite her protesting mind. She spluttered for words but didn’t need them. “That’s very sweet,” Neville said, reaching for the bacon to his far right. He smiled over his shoulder at her. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Ginny’s brilliant, she really is. Everyone’s been talking about it recently. I heard McGonagall say that if she keeps it up for the next few years she might even be able to go pro.”

Hermione’s mouth dropped open. “McGonagall said _what_?”

Neville winked conspiratorially at her. “You didn’t hear it from me.” He stuffed some more food into his mouth as Hermione tried to recover from her shock. She had no clue Ginny was _that_ good at Quidditch. “McGonagall doesn’t want to tell her until it’s more of a sure thing. After all, she’s still young; she’s only, what, sixteen?” Hermione nodded. “Still, don’t be surprised if there are some scouts here her final year. Ginny’s a brilliant Quidditch player, and she doesn’t really know what she wants to do after school ends, so she’s the perfect choice for recruiting.”

“I just… I didn’t know.”

“Yes, well,” Neville shrugged, “ _she_ doesn’t even know, so…” He glanced down at his watch. “Damn, we better go if we want to get good seats.”

Sure enough, the Great Hall was emptying around them. Students were clearing out from every table, wearing red and gold and yellow and black and chattering as they streamed down towards the pitch.

Neville wiped his lips, stood from the table, and clapped his hands together, rubbing them excitedly. “Shall we?”

Hermione stood too, still reeling from the revelation that Ginny — _Ginny Weasley_ — was apparently well in line to become a professional Quidditch player when she graduated Hogwarts.

How did she not know Ginny was that good?

Hermione made a note to pay closer attention.

**

Ron did so poorly in the match that they almost lost — and without Ginny and Harry they certainly would have. It was a tense 90 minutes. With every goal that slipped past Ron’s extended arms Hermione could see him getting more and more upset, more and more frustrated with himself. He started yelling at the team only twenty minutes in; beaters and chasers and even Harry were all subject to his scathing abuse. (Although Harry, because he was so level-headed and perfectly composed, was able to completely ignore the fuming Ron — something Hermione admired him endlessly for, as it was no easy feat.)

Ron yelled the loudest at Ginny, and Hermione was absolutely _fuming_ because of it. She ground her teeth as his harsh voice sounded over a chorus of groans from the red and gold wearing Gryffindor fans. “Come on Ginny keep your head up!” He screamed, and Hermione — without even realizing it — reached for her wand.

Luna’s steadying hand on her arm stopped her. “I think even a lousy keeper is better than no keeper, Hermione,” she said softly out of the side of her mouth.

Hermione huffed but she knew Luna was right. “He might as _well_ not even be there. He hasn’t done anything all match. And where does he get off, tearing into Ginny like that?”

“Well… I would imagine he feels his masculinity is threatened,” Luna responded without taking her eyes from the zooming players overhead. “His ex-girlfriend is dating his sister, so I imagine some people have been teasing him, and now he’s playing an absolutely dreadful match of Quidditch, which can’t be very exciting on top of it. You can’t really expect different from him.”

Hermione _knew_ Luna was right but she couldn’t help but feel the righteous indignation well inside of her when, upon witnessing Ginny score (her eighth point of the match), Ron screamed, “You need to be faster, Ginny!”

But Ginny — marvelous, marvelous Ginny — valiantly refused to respond to any of Ron’s ‘critiques.’ With every shouted insult she seemed to grow stronger and more sure of herself, faster with the quaffle and more daring with her shots, and it was _paying off_. Despite Ron missing nearly every single shot that came his way, Ginny was almost single-handedly keeping them above water.

They were only trailing Hufflepuff by around thirty points when Ginny — in her first mistake of the match — lost the quaffle to Ernie McMillan.

Even playing a brilliant game of Quidditch could only subdue Ginny’s own explosive temper for so long. When, moments after her fumble, Ron screeched, red in the face, “Ginny! Shape up! We’re losing because of you!” Hermione saw Ginny snap.

She whirled around on her broom, expression murderous and eyes blazing as they caught the reflected light of the sun off the lake. She opened her mouth and reached for the place in her robes where Hermione _knew_ she kept her wand.

Hermione looked around frantically, hoping that someone else had noticed the fight that was about to break out on the pitch.

Luckily Harry had.

“Time out!” He shouted. When the whistle didn’t sound immediately he flew as fast as he could towards Madame Hooch. “Time out!” He called again, waving his arms in front of him as he approached her with break-neck speed. This time, she noticed.

“Ninety seconds, time out called by Gryffindor!” Madame Hooch boomed and blew her whistle in three short, loud bursts.

 _“And it looks like Harry Potter has called a time out,”_ the announcer’s voice echoed across the stadium, _“very rare in a game of Qiudditch. Usually teams like to play out the game with no interruptions, so this is certainly an…_ interesting _strategy. But unsurprising, considering the tension currently fizzling between Potter’s team, specifically the two Weasley siblings, who seem incapable of working together in this rapidly disintegrating game. Ginny Weasley has had one of the best games of her life, while Ron has been giving a less-than-stellar performance…”_ his voice continued but the Gryffindor team paid him no attention.

The seven of them landed on the ground in seconds.

Ginny gripped her broom in one hand and stalked towards Ron, who stood farthest from her out of any of them, his fists and jaw clenched, eyes trained on his muddy boots. “You filthy prat,” she hissed, rapidly approaching her brother, “if it weren’t for you—”

Harry caught her around her upper arm and pulled her to a stop before she could say anything more. “Cool it, Gin.” He warned in a low voice.

Ginny ignored him. “You’re such a dick.” She growled at her brother, but Ron just glared at her and didn’t say a word. “What, now that we’re down on the ground you’re not screaming at me? Now that I can yell back, you don’t have anything you want to say?” He sneered. She scoffed. “Some big man you are, can’t even block the _fucking_ goals.”

“Ginny, I’m serious,” Harry tried again in a low, steady voice, his hand tightening around her upper arm in a wordless warning.

Ginny yanked away from him and took another step towards Ron. “If you say _one_ more thing about my flying I’m going to—”

“What, steal my girlfriend again?” Ron cut in with an angry snarl to his words.

Ginny lunged at him but was caught immediately by Harry and Demelza. Ron took a stumbling step backwards.

“Ginny! Off, now!” Harry yelled, yanking her back and away from Ron.

She stared at him in outrage, mouth agape and face rapidly turning red. “Harry you _can’t_ just—”

“I can and I will.” He commanded, pointing to the changing tents. “Off the pitch. Demelza, you’re on. Grab a broom.”

Ginny glared at Harry, fighting the urge to scream and tear her hair out. She stared at him for several long moments but knew, instinctively, that he was not changing his mind.

She growled, threw her broom to the ground and stormed off and away from the huddle, tearing her gloves from her hands as she stalked into the changing rooms without so much as a glance behind her.

~~

“Why would he _do_ that?” Hermione muttered indignantly. “She’s been the best one out there today, and it wasn’t _her_ fault. Ron was baiting her…”

Neville shook his head. “They have two alternate Chasers and no alternate Keeper. Harry can’t just kick _Ron_ off the pitch, no matter how much he may want to,” he said sympathetically. “We can maybe win with another chaser, if he can get the snitch quick enough, but without a keeper… we’re toast.”

 _“And it looks like Potter has sent Weasley off the pitch! That’s the_ female _Weasley, to all of you not watching. Seems the tension got too great for the team to battle through. Strange move on Potter’s part, considering Weasley — the female Weasley, again — has been Gryffindor’s top goal-scorer of the day, but I suppose he thought he had to do something to separate the two siblings. One can only wonder how bad their ongoing feud must be, to cause the captain of the team to throw one of them out of the game —_ especially _such a pivotal player as Weasley… again I’m referring to the_ female _Weasley, as Ron has frankly failed to wow_ anyone _with his performance today…”_

Hermione stood. “I’m going to find Ginny.”

“Yeah, yeah totally.” Neville stood quickly to allow her to pass him. “Tell her we’re both sorry, yeah?” He glanced down next to him at Luna, who looked like she didn’t even realize the teams had stopped playing. “We’ll let you know how the match turns out.”

Hermione nodded and slipped out from next to him, hurrying past the muttering and mutinous Gryffindor crowd. As Ginny had disappeared off the pitch, a few scattered “ _boo’s_ ” had overtaken the Gryffindor section, with a few of the older students even yelling obscenities at the notion of one of their best players not being allowed to finish the match.

From across the pitch a collection of Slytherin students had started up a chorus of “Weasley is Our King” that Hermione was determined to _not_ listen to. The words, however, pierced her mind of their own volition.

 

_“Weasley cannot save a thing,_

_He always ruins everything._

_That’s why Slytherins all sing,_

_Weasley is our King!...”_

Hermione shut the sound out and raced out of the stadium and towards the entrance to the changing tent. She heard three sharp blows from Madame Hooch’s whistle and knew the game must have picked back up, to the jeering of Hufflepuff and Slytherin students alike, annoyed at the unusual delay of game, and to the pained moans of the Gryffindors, now almost certain of an impending loss.

As she got closer to the tent, she heard the growing sounds of Ginny rampaging inside.

“Fuck!” Ginny’s voice seeped out of the tent, followed by a loud ‘ _smack’_ that had Hermione rushing inside. “Fuck fuck _fuck_!” Ginny screamed, accenting each word by smashing her fist into the wooden door of an open locker.

She shouted incoherently and tore the contents from their place inside the cubby, dashing them across the ground.

“Goddamn it!” She punched the door again, so hard it splintered down the middle.

“Ginny, stop.” Hermione implored calmly, taking a step forwards and towards the girl who now stood in the middle of the room, completely out of breath and gripping her swollen, red hand.

Ginny whipped around on her, and the fire glowing behind her eyes was enough to make Hermione’s steps falter.

But just like that the fire was gone, and Ginny’s expression slipped from fury to one of pained confusion. “What are you doing here, Hermione?”

“I was worried about you. And rightly so.” Hermione took a step forward and took Ginny’s hand lightly in hers. Ginny hissed in pain as Hermione’s fingers prodded the inflamed area of her protruding knuckles. “What have you done to your hand?”

Ginny scoffed. “You should see the other guy.”

Hermione glanced pointedly behind Ginny’s shoulder at the cracked door. “I _can_ see the other guy. Frankly I’d say you’re both faring about the same.” She pulled her wand out and started running the tip over Ginny’s hand. “I think you’ve broken your knuckles.”

“Excellent,” Ginny grumbled, but even as she said it, the pain was slowly slipping away from her hand, replaced by a cool tingling that felt like a soothing liquid balm expanding from the injured part of her hand and seeping up her wrist to her shoulder.

In a few seconds her hand looked much better — not perfect, and still faintly bruised, but certainly better. She flexed her fingers experimentally and felt hardly a twinge. She blinked down at Hermione. “That was… where did you learn how to do that?”

“It’s amazing what you can learn when you read, isn’t it?” Hermione answered with an edge to her voice that gave Ginny pause. Hermione was still staring down at Ginny’s hand, refusing to meet her eyes.

Ginny pursed her lips and asked quietly, “Are you angry with me?”

Hermione sighed and pointed her wand at the fractured locker. “Repairo,” she muttered, and the locker seemed to sew itself back together, the wood fragments weaving tight until Ginny could no longer tell that it had ever been broken. “I’m not angry with you,” Hermione finally answered. “Although I don’t think you should have gone around punching things until you broke your hand.”

“Better the wood than Ron’s face,” Ginny grumbled.

Hermione half-chuckled. “You don’t actually believe that.”

“You’re right, I don’t. He was being such a… such a…” She struggled to find a word adequately filthy enough to describe the scum Ron was, but she didn’t really get the chance, because Hermione’s soft voice and gentle, understanding nodding drained her mind of obscenities.

“I know. I’m furious that Harry sent you off and not him. You didn’t deserve it.” Ginny felt something akin to pride and pleasure swelling below the surface of her chest. It felt _good_ to be vindicated. “You were brilliant, by the way,” Hermione continued, and Ginny hadn’t even really noticed until now, but Hermione still held her hand in both of hers. “Even with Ron being… well, being a right git. You were wonderful out there. I didn’t… I didn’t even know…” Hermione looked up then, and directly into Ginny’s eyes.

Something inside Ginny’s chest clenched.

Ginny flushed and swallowed thickly, acutely aware of the fact that Hermione still had a loose grip on her fingers. “Thanks,” she practically whispered. She was looking into Hermione’s eyes and could not look away. Hermione glanced down (at her lips?) and Ginny felt her stomach swoop. She leaned forwards just slightly, almost imperceptibly, and Hermione’s eyes fluttered closed and she wondered, thrillingly, if they were about to… if Hermione was going to let her…

“How _dare_ you?” Someone shrieked from near the entrance.

Ginny and Hermione leapt apart as if they’d been cursed.

Lavender stood in the opening, backlit by the bright afternoon sun and hair flying in the wind, looking as deranged as she did indignant. Ginny and Hermione exchanged a look which went unnoticed by their most unwelcome companion.

“How dare you sit in here acting like nothing is wrong?” Lavender stalked forwards, glaring alternatively between Ginny and Hermione, as if she couldn’t decide at whom to direct her ire. “Poor Ronnie is out there getting clobbered and it’s all your fault!”

Ginny glanced again at Hermione. “Umm… whose fault is it, exactly?”

“Her! You! _Both_ of you!” Lavender screeched. “You and your… your _dyke_ drama is distracting poor Ron from playing his best! I can’t even believe Harry even let _you_ on the team,” she directed at Ginny, “and _you_ ,” she shot, pointing at Hermione. Ginny took a reflexive step in front of her. “How _dare_ you sleep with your ex-boyfriend’s sister? Do you have no _shame_?”

“You can’t just speak to her—” Ginny started indignantly, but Hermione laid a hand on her shoulder, effectively silencing her.

Hermione arched an eyebrow and looked at Lavender coolly. “You’d think, since _Ronnie_ has a new girlfriend and all, that he couldn’t _possibly_ be distracted by his ex and her girlfriend. I mean, all thing’s considered, since he’s moved on so _effectively_ , who I choose to have a relationship with or not is frankly none of his concern.” Lavender’s nostrils flared. “I wonder why it seems to matter to him… why it seems to matter to _you_ , either. Unless, perhaps… you’re more jealous and insecure than you want _Ronnie_ to know?”

Lavender flushed a furious shade of red and gasped for words like a fish gasping in open air. “Why how dare you—?””

“Yes, how _dare_ I,” Hermione said, voice still calm and even, “I seem to be be doing quite the daring feats today, don’t I Gin?”

Ginny nodded. “Apparently so.”

Lavender opened her mouth, and probably _would_ have said something more (perhaps curses, perhaps insults, Ginny and Hermione would never know) when the final whistle blew and the crowd outside roared.

_“And Potter has caught the snitch! 150 points to Gryffindor! A tough game for Potter and the Lions, barely eking out a win, 240-200 in their favour. I tell you, without the youngest Weasley early in the match and Potter’s superb and veteran flying skills, this one would surely have gone to Hufflepuff…”_

Ginny spoke over the rest of the announcements. “Better clear out of here, Lavender. You’re not allowed in unless you’re on the team.”

Lavender huffed and turned on her heel, storming out (she did not comment on the fact that _Hermione_ wasn’t a player, either; but perhaps that was because she was too furious to notice, or perhaps because she wanted the excuse to escape as much as Ginny and Hermione wanted her to leave them be).

“I should go too,” Hermione whispered, and Ginny turned around, the air between them suddenly thick again, charged with things unsaid.

Ginny nodded. “Yeah. Yeah I’ll… I’ll catch you after?” Her eyes locked onto Hermione’s, and the energy that sparked in the air between them was enough to make the hair on Ginny’s arms stand on end.

Hermione nodded and smiled. “Try not to kill Ron in the meantime, will you?”

Ginny shrugged and laughed, and whatever strange tension there had been dissipated easily (which she was very thankful for). “No promises.”

Hermione smiled and slipped into Ginny’s arms, giving her a tight — but brief — embrace. “I _am_ sorry about today.”

“We won. It’s no big deal.” But she was lying, and Hermione knew that too.

She pulled away and gave Ginny a sympathetic look. “I’ll meet you outside.”

“Watch out for Lavender. She could be waiting to ambush you.” Ginny half-teased.

“Yes, well I’d like to see her try.”

Hermione slipped out of the tent just as the rest of the team filed in. Demelza shot her a tight, apologetic smile which Ginny did her best to return. Katie Bell walked in behind her and handed Ginny her broom which she had — unwittingly — left behind in her desire to storm off the pitch. “You played well today, Gin,” Katie said quietly as Peakes and Coote stumbled in, talking loudly and riding the high of their first win on the Gryffindor team — seemingly unaware of the silence engulfing the other players. “But I’m sorry about what happened.”

Ginny shrugged and took her broom back, smiling gratefully. “It isn’t your fault. And besides, he was yelling at you too.”

“Not as much,” Katie argued quietly, and Ginny silently agreed.

Ron pushed in last, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze (though they all stared in his direction), choosing instead to throw himself down on the bench and tear at his gear with unbridled fury.

Ginny glared at him but didn’t say anything.

There was a tap on her shoulder and she turned, coming face to face with Harry — who she was still pretty furious at, too, mind you. But he looked at her with such a helpless expression that she found her anger slipping down and away.

“I’m _sorry_ , Ginny,” he said, and she shrugged, turning away form him to strip herself of her uniform.

“Don’t worry about it, Harry.”

“Gin, you’re one of our best Chasers. You _know_ that I wouldn’t have… if there was _any_ other way…”

“It’s fine, Harry; he’s your best friend. I get it.” She threw her pads in her locker and slammed the door shut (just because she wasn’t _as_ angry at him as she could have been didn’t mean she wasn’t still peeved).

“No, hey now.” He grabbed her arm and turned her around gently. “I didn’t do any of this because Ron’s my friend, because frankly,” he whispered the next part, “he’s been a garbage friend to me and you and Hermione recently. It’s just…” he looked distressed again, “we don’t have a backup Keeper. I couldn’t just… _toss_ him.”

Ginny sighed and placed her hand on top of Harry’s. She squeezed it, once. “I know, Harry. I get it.” He smiled a small, tight smile, but she was quick to add, “But just because I understand doesn’t mean that I’m not still mad at you. Because I _am_ still mad at you. And him,” she gestured towards Ron’s slumped form with her head, “so let me be mad at you for a bit, yeah?”

Harry breathed a sigh of relief and took a step back. “I guess that’s all I can ask for.” There was a short pause. “You really were incredible today. Keep up the good work.”

She smiled, and this time it was a good bit sincerer. “Thanks, Harry.”

He nodded and turned to the room at large. He cleared his throat and knocked the end of his broom against one of the wooden benches a few times, drawing the eyes of the entire team to his tower figure. “I’ll not give a speech today. It’s been… it was a pretty rough game, as you all know. Even though we won, I wouldn’t consider this a victory. So… go back to the dorms, eat some food, take a bath, and we’ll talk more strategy on Monday at practice. Four o’clock; don’t be late.”

There were murmurs of “Yes Harry” and “You got it” before the players began to dissipate.

By the time Ginny had pulled her robes back over her head, Ron was gone, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She really didn’t know what she was going to do about him. Any time they could manage to avoid each other was time well spent, in Ginny’s opinion

She also didn’t know what she was going to do about Hermione but that… that was _much_ more complicated. And she really didn’t have the energy to think about it today. So she shoved it into the back of her mind and pretended like she would address it eventually.

(She never would.)

**


	2. Chapter 2

**

Hermione sighed and rubbed at her eyes, blinking away the bleariness. She didn’t usually have problems waking up early in the morning, but she’d stayed up late the previous night working on an extra credit assignment for Professor McGonagall and didn’t get her standard 7.5 hours of sleep. So today, her body was punishing her.

She was working on a proposal for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures regarding house elf rights. McGonagall told her that if she could finish drafting a complete proposal before the end of term, she would hand it off to someone she knew inside the Ministry. Which meant that Hermione could potentially be the youngest person _ever_ to pass comprehensive magical creature status reform; she could potentially be the youngest person _ever_ to write _any_ sort of wizarding legislation. It was an incredible opportunity, and one which Hermione did not take for granted. Hence the many late, sleepless nights.

McGonagall _also_ said that if, come graduation, she was still interested in working for the enhancement of underprivileged and marginalized creatures, she would write her a letter of recommendation so that she could possibly intern inside the department — which would honestly be a dream come true, for Hermione.

It excited her to no end to know that she had some sort of future employment lined up (though it was indefinite and only potential). And to know that McGonagall was advocating for her so heavily, was so interested in helping her after graduation? It was an honour, for sure.

She hadn’t told anyone about it, though — not Harry, not Ron when they had been dating, and _certainly_ not Ginny. She wasn’t exactly sure _why_ she had kept this a secret, but… well… she supposed that, when it all came down to it… she didn’t want them to make fun of her. Harry and Ron both had plans to be Aurors when they left Hogwarts — which was basically like the wizarding version of MI5 — and Ginny was apparently on track to be a professional Quidditch player (even if she didn’t know it yet). Hermione’s desire to be a glorified lawyer, a bureaucratic grunt, wasn’t likely to be met with the highest form of _enthusiasm_ from her friends. Harry and Ron already thought that she was a little ridiculous with the whole S.P.E.W business.

So she didn’t say anything about it. They thought she was just up late studying, burying herself in her books and in her work. Like always.

She didn’t mind them thinking that. It wasn’t exactly ‘cool’ to be interested in domestic policy and litigation.

But, _Christ_ , how was she just supposed to sit around and let the wizarding world continue to have _slaves_? How was no one else as infuriated by this practice as she was? How could people — even civilized, polite, _knowledgeable_ people like the Weasleys — be okay with pureblood families owning _slaves_?

She had to do _something_ about it. She couldn’t just… with everything her family had been through she couldn’t just do and say _nothing_.

She just wished that she didn’t feel ashamed for working and advocating for something she genuinely believed in. McGonagall was really the only person she genuinely felt comfortable talking to about this. She was the only one who seemed to really _understand_ Hermione’s drive, her passion, her desperation to make a difference. McGonagall found it admirable. McGonagall shot her a small, proud little smile whenever Hermione got caught up talking about these sorts of things and couldn’t seem to shut up.

Still, she wished she could—

“Hello, dear,” Ginny said, sliding into the seat opposite Hermione with a grin on her face.

Hermione shook herself, forcing her mind to come out of whatever sinking reality it had been falling into. She looked at Ginny and smiled, the weariness evidently visible on her face.

Ginny smirked. “You are looking _particularly_ chipper this morning. What are you drinking? Coffee? Tea?” Ginny reached for the mug sat in front of Hermione’s place and sniffed it experimentally. She pulled a face. “Yeah, I think that’s strong enough for you.”

“And what are _you_ so happy about, then?” Hermione managed to force out through her yawn. “You hate mornings.”

Ginny beamed. “Well I’m glad you asked.” A short pause, wherein her leg bounced with excitement under the table, making her entire body vibrate. “It’s been a month.”

Hermione blinked. “A month since what?”

Ginny rolled her eyes but the smile didn’t leave her lips. “Since we started ‘dating’ silly,” Hermione could hear the quotes around the word, “so happy anniversary.”

“Oh, do you have something planned? I don’t see any gifts around.” Hermione teased.

“As a matter of fact, I was wondering if my _lovely_ girlfriend would be so kind as to come to my Quidditch match tomorrow against the ruthless,” Ginny lowered her voice, “and frankly bloody terrible,” her voice went back to normal volume as Hermione laughed, “Slytherin arseholes.” Ginny grinned as Hermione shook her head. “So, what do you say?”

“I don’t know…” Hermione pretended to ponder, “this feels like a _very_ serious request. And we _have_ only been together for a month…”

“Well if you don’t want to—” Ginny grumbled, dejectedly.

Hermione chuckled. “Of _course_ I’m coming to the game. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well _I_ don’t know, Hermione, you sort of _hate_ Quidditch. I wouldn’t exactly be surprised if you wanted to—”

“Have I missed a match in six years?” Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Um… I don’t know, have you?”

“Sort of a rhetorical question, Gin.”

“Oh. So you _haven’t_ missed a match in—?”

“Ginny _stop_ ,” she laughed, “I’ll be there, with rings on my fingers and bells on my toes.”

Ginny pulled a face. “Why on _Earth_ would you do that? You’ll jingle when you walk.”

“It’s a Muggle expression.”

Ginny made a sound that quite mimicked a ‘harrumph’ and crossed her arms over her chest. “You know when you say things like that I think that you’re just making it up to mess with me.”

Hermione bit her lip and looked down at the food in front of her, using her fork to push some eggs around on her mostly-empty plate. “You know you should really take Muggle Studies. It’d help you a lot.”

Ginny waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t need to take Muggle Studies. I have you. You teach me all the Muggle things I need to know.”

Hermione laughed and shook her head. “It doesn’t _really_ count as teaching when you don’t believe eighty percent of the things I tell you.”

“That’s because you _make up words_.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, a light smile on her lips. “I’ll be at your game, Gin. Happy?”

She was. “No,” she said instead, “because you teased me and it made me feel very unloved.”

Hermione bit her lip and focused her attention back onto her food, fighting laughter. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, Gin.”

“No you’re not.” And Hermione hid a grin behind a curtain of hair because, no, she really wasn’t.

**

Ginny was lacing up her boots in the changing tent, her foot tapping a quick and nervous pattern against the floor. She _knew_ that she would fly well today — she had firm faith in her flying abilities — but still, before every match nerves settled into her stomach deeply and uncomfortably, causing a nervous energy to thrum through her and a sick sort of nausea to build inside her stomach. It happened every time, before every match, without fail.

Ginny chewed at her bottom lip and played with the lining of her gloves and wondered, briefly, if Hermione was out in the stands like she had promised.

“Are you going to be okay today?” Her ears perked up, and she glanced across the changing area to where Harry was bent over next to Ron, muttering quietly — but not so quietly that Ginny could not still hear him.

“I’ll be fine,” Ron grumbled, not looking up, “don’t worry about me.”

“I _meant_ are you going to be a prick today?” Ron’s eyes shot up to glower at Harry. “Because I’m not sending Ginny off again. You know you were out of line last time.”

“Yeah, Harry, I got it.” He huffed, throwing his broom over his shoulder and stomping out of the tent.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He glanced across the room and Ginny flushed and looked away, hoping that her eavesdropping had gone unnoticed (of course she wasn’t so lucky). She knew that Harry had seen her eyeing them, listening in on them, but he did not approach her or call her out. He merely watched her until she looked up at him again, and then he nodded once, and walked out of the opening.

Ginny hastened to follow. She was determined to prove herself today; to prove that Harry was right to have faith in her; that between the two of them, _Ron_ was the weaker one.

She needed to keep her head down, fly well, and ignore her brother. She needed to make herself invaluable to the team, make it so that Harry couldn’t _possibly_ send her off-pitch again.

She wouldn’t lose her cool again. She wouldn’t let Ron get to her like that again.

She _wouldn’t_.

~~

Slytherin was playing dirty. She knew they would — they _always_ did — but today was especially brutal.

It was raining, just slightly, just enough to obscure Ginny’s vision and make her reaction times a fraction less than their usual sharp speed, just enough to make her hands slip where they clutched at her broom and make the Quaffle feel unbalanced and unsure under her arm.

It wasn’t _terrible_ , and on any other day she wouldn’t have let it distract or deter her significantly. But today wasn’t like any other day. Because Slytherin wasn’t giving her an inch edgewise.

Every time she even _touched_ the Quaffle she was swarmed by two Chasers and a speeding bludger not a moment later. She didn’t have room to fly, passes to her were getting intercepted left and right, and she had only managed _one_ goal — Katie and Demelza had two apiece — and they were _losing_.

Ginny had just caught the Quaffle when she was body-slammed _hard_ by Blaise Zabini. She faltered, felt her grip on the wet wood slipping, and cursed as the ball dropped from her hold. She barely managed to keep from overturning completely, only at the very end locking her arms and forcing her torso to stay upright. A gasp went up from the crowd as she fought to right herself.

“Fuck,” she exclaimed under her breath, shoulder smarting and teeth aching where they had crashed together from the force of the impact.

She’d feel that tomorrow.

Harry called for a time-out.

Ginny shook out her right shoulder as she landed on the ground with her team.

“You guys, what’s happening out there?” Harry looked at her when he asked the question, but it was Katie Bell who jumped in.

“It isn’t her fault, Harry!”

“Yeah,” Coote supplied, “they aren’t letting her _move_ if she’s got the Quaffle.”

“And she’s almost been taken out by a bludger four times!” Peakes called.

Harry glared at the two of them. “Then why aren’t you _stopping_ the bludgers?” He growled, and the two young beaters turned red and glanced at each other. He sighed in annoyance at them. “Ginny, are you okay? Do you need me to call in—”

“No, Harry, I’ve got this.” She gritted her teeth in determination. “They’re doing it on purpose. They saw how I played last match and they aren’t risking it.”

“Are you _sure_?” He asked again, “Because if you can’t score, then—”

“It’s fine, I’ve got it.” She glanced at Ron who, for the second game in a row, had so far failed to stop a _single_ shot. They were down 220-50. She wanted to say something to him, something like, _Pick it up, will you?_ But Ron was drenched and muddy and cold and miserable, and she may be right pissed at him right now, but he was still her bloody _brother_. None of them were playing well, they were all miserable, and it just… it wasn’t worth it.

She bit her tongue and said nothing.

“Okay,” Harry nodded, “Peakes and Coote, try to keep the heat off of Ginny for a bit. Gin, get the ball, attract them to you, and then toss it off quick as you can to Katie or Demelza. We’re trying to spread them out now, okay? Take more shots on goal, keep possession of the Quaffle,” he glanced momentarily at Ron, “and let’s finish this match strong, alright?”

They all nodded and mounted their brooms.

When the whistle sounded they were off.

~~

“They really aren’t giving Ginny much room to breathe, are they?” Neville muttered to Hermione, who nodded without answering him. She gnawed on her bottom lip and clenched her sweaty fists in an attempt to stop them shaking. “Did you see Zabini run into her like that? I’m surprised Hooch didn’t call a foul on him.”

“Mhmm,” Hermione responded noncommittally.

She felt Neville’s eyes on her but couldn’t be bothered to turn to him. “Are you alright, Hermione?”

“Oh don’t bother her,” Luna interjected from Neville’s other side, her eyes trained on the sky. “She’s nervous about Ginny.”

Neville clapped Hermione on the shoulder (which really did nothing to help steady her nerves), and said, “Don’t you worry, Hermione. Gin’s a brilliant flier. She’ll be just fine.”

“Oh I wish you hadn’t said that…” Hermione muttered under her breath, casting her anxious gaze on Ginny’s quickly darting form.

There was a loud _smack,_ a _crunch_ , and a scream, and Ginny was falling, falling through the air, and Hermione had just enough time to whip out her wand and slow her descent before her limp body slapped the ground with an unhealthy amount of pressure.

Hermione felt sick.

Somewhere above her the whistle blew, and the game ended.

~~

Ginny came to in the hospital wing, surrounded by the rest of the team, shivering and dripping and covered in mud. She blinked blearily and sat up in her bed. “What… what happened?” She was still in her robes and her hair was still sopping wet, which meant she couldn’t have been unconscious for longer than a few minutes. She tried to shift her weight and gasped in shock and pain when a tingling explosion shot up her shoulder, through her neck, and to her head. “Woah.” She dropped back down, feeling suddenly very dizzy. “That’s a head rush.”

“Madame Pomfrey thinks you’ve got a dislocated shoulder, Ginny.” Luna volunteered from the side, and Ginny jumped. She hadn’t even noticed Luna was there. “But she hasn’t looked at it yet. The priority in these cases is the head injury.”

“Head injury?” Ginny asked, confused. She blinked up at Harry, brow furrowed. “I have a head injury?”

He nodded. “You got hit pretty hard, yeah. And, you know… you fell off your broom.”

“I did?” She shook her pounding, throbbing head. “I honestly can’t remember.”

“I hear that’s pretty common,” Harry said sympathetically.

“What happened in the match?”

Harry grimaced and glanced to the side where Ron was standing, eyes trained, unmoving, on his feet. “Caught the snitch, lost the game,” was all he offered, and Ginny _knew_ that if she had been given more room… if she’d just been a faster flier… if Ron could have just _blocked a fucking shot_ …

“Fuck!” Ginny cursed. When Madame Pomfrey made an affronted noise from across the room, Ginny offered up a half-hearted, “Sorry, Madame P.” She let her head slump back down onto her pillow, and her vision greyed out momentarily, reminding her: “How did I hit my head?”

A sour expression overtook Harry’s face. He gestured behind him, and when Ginny glanced over his shoulder she saw that the bed diagonal to hers was also occupied by a Quidditch player. Blaise Zabini gave her a sarcastic little wave as Madame Pomfrey wrapped a bandage tightly around his bleeding forehead.

“Zabini ran into you; full speed, might I add, and it was totally illegal.” Katie glowered at him. He sneered back at her. “Fortunate for him half of Gryffindor didn’t hex him right where he was. But, you know, he fell off _his_ broom too, and I don’t think anyone slowed _his_ fall down, so…”

Ginny frowned. “Someone slowed my fall down?”

“Yeah,” Neville said, “Hermione—”

“Where _is_ that girlfriend of yours, Weasley?” Zabini cut into their conversation. The team turned to face him. “Run off to find a man to be with, finally?”

Madame Pomfrey pulled his bandage a little tighter, and Zabini winced as the tugging sensation jerked his neck.

Ginny _really_ wished she had her wand.

“When we’re both out of here,” Zabini continued, “I can show you how a _real_ man treats a woman.” He grabbed his crotch lewdly. Ginny did not flush or look away. “What do you say? Dump the mudblood and we can—”

Ginny reached blindly for her wand even as Ron exploded. “That’s my sister you’re talking about!” He shouted and took several murderous steps towards where Zabini lay in his bed, head bandaged and smirk painting his features despite the furious Weasley approaching him.

Katie grabbed the back of Ron’s collar and yanked him to a choking stop. He spluttered and coughed but didn’t move further. “Slow your roll, killer,” she said as Ron rubbed at his sore neck. “No need to put up a stink.”

Zabini laughed, Ron snarled, and Ginny saw red.

“Oh, you’ll talk _about_ me and _defend_ me but you won’t actually _speak_ to me? That’s nice, Ron.” Ginny scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. Ron turned to look at her, eyes narrowed and lip pulled back over his teeth. She raised her eyebrows. “What, no witty response? No _snappy_ retort?”

Ron glared, and Harry hastened to put himself between the two of them. “Don’t listen to her, Ron,” he said, back to Ginny and arms outstretched in a show of modest appeasement. “She’s a bit rattled… took a nasty hit to the head, yeah?”

“My head works just _fine_ , Harry.”

“Not really helping, Ginny.” He muttered out of the side of his mouth.

Without another word, Ron turned on his heel and marched towards the door. On his way out he smacked his shoulder, quite accidentally, into Hermione — who was racing in, out of breath and face flushed. She went crashing back into Madame Pomfrey’s desk, knocking several potions off of their precarious perch. Glass shattered and crunched as vials hit the ground and liquid seeped into the stone floor and Ron, who barely paused long enough to make sure Hermione was on her feet again, was out the door without looking back.

“Hermione, are you okay?” Ginny called, struggling to raise herself in bed.

Neville rushed to Hermione’s assistance, helping her step past a muttering Madame Pomfrey and over smashed glass to the small crowd around Ginny’s bed.

She was flustered and a little rattled, but nonetheless she raced to put herself at Ginny’s side. She grabbed Ginny’s hand, clutching it tightly, and said, “I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m sorry, Ginny, I would have been here sooner but I was sending a letter to your parents, letting them know what—”

“You didn’t need to do that, Hermione,” Ginny interrupted, “I’m going to be just fi—”

“Ginny you sustained a serious blow to the head and fell off of your broom. Your parents had a right to—”

Ginny chuckled. “Will you _stop_ worrying so much about—” She was cut off when Hermione ducked her head down low and kissed her soundly and surely. Ginny felt a flush rise in her neck but she didn’t pull away, allowing the firm pressure of Hermione’s lips on hers to distract her for a few blissful moments.

Hermione pulled away after only a few seconds. She leaned her forehead against Ginny’s and closed her eyes, whispering, “I’m never going to stop worrying about you as long as you insist on playing this _ridiculous_ game.”

Ginny laughed through a thickness in her throat and a moisture behind her eyes. She blinked them rapidly, forcing the creeping tears at bay. “If I recall, you seemed to almost even _like_ Quidditch yesterday.”

“Well… yesterday you weren’t in hospital.”

Well. Ginny couldn’t argue with that.

“Don’t do this to me again, please,” Hermione implored. “My heart can’t handle the stress.”

“You’re young; your heart is fine,” Ginny whispered against her cheek, but it wasn’t very sincere. Hermione really _did_ look a right mess, like she had aged four years in the past half hour.

Ginny vowed, then and there, to never put Hermione through something like that again.

If only she knew.

**

“Hey, Luna, wait up!” Ginny called as her friend slipped from their classroom. McGonagall had just dismissed them for the weekend, with a shouted reminder of the essay they had due the following class — far too long for Ginny’s liking, _especially_ considering how close they were to the end of term — and Luna had booked it before Ginny even got the chance to speak with her.

Outside the door, in the midst of a hallway of bustling students, Luna stood still in the middle — like a boulder, immovable in the midst of a rushing stream — smiling at the place where Ginny had just appeared. “Hello, Ginny.”

“Hey. You ran out of there so quickly I was worried I wouldn’t catch you.”

Luna shook her head and started gliding towards the nearest staircase, with Ginny trailing closely after her. “Oh no, you’re much faster than me. I doubt you would ever not be able to catch me.”

Ginny laughed, “I get what you’re saying, but it’s not really what I meant.” Luna blinked at her but otherwise didn’t respond. Ginny cleared her throat and continued on, “Anyways, I was wondering if you were going to Hogsmeade this weekend?”

“Oh yes, I think I’d quite like to go. I really do like the sugar quills they sell at Honeydukes, and the ones my father sent me last month have almost run out.”

Ginny grinned. “Well excellent; do you want to go together?”

Luna blinked again, but this time in surprise. “Oh,” she exclaimed softly, “oh no that’s alright, Ginny. Thank you for the invitation, though.”

She stepped onto the stairs and they immediately started to move. Ginny squawked indignantly and leapt after her, managing to catch the ascending stairs just in time. The landing jolted her shoulder — which still smarted a little, even with all of Madame Pomfrey’s potions — and she gritted her teeth against the hiss fighting from the back of her throat. She glared at the stone beneath her feet. “Now why on _Earth_ would you move if not everyone was on?”

“I don’t think the stairs can hear you,” Luna said, wistfully, her eyes tracking movement in one of the large portraits passing on their right.

Ginny waved her off. “Nevermind that.” She looked at Luna, a little concerned. “Why don’t you want to go to Hogsmeade with me?”

“Well it’s very nice of you to invite me, but I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Ginny laughed lightly, her brow furrowing in confusion. “What could you possibly be intruding on?”

Luna looked perplexed. “Aren’t you going with Hermione?”

Ginny blinked and almost fell backwards. Of course. Of _course_ she should be planning on spending the one remaining day outside of the castle this term with her girlfriend. How did she not _think_ of that?

She played it off — though not very smoothly — with a laugh and a shrug. “Hermione and I don’t go _everywhere_ together, Luna.”

“Hmm,” Luna hummed. “Well… I suppose… if you’re sure…”

Ginny nodded her head vigorously. “Don’t worry about it; she’s planning on spending some time with Harry and Neville, anyway.” _That_ part was at least true. Hermione had mentioned it to her just last week. “We can catch up with her eventually,” she finished, with an inviting and imploring tilt of the head.

Luna beamed. “Well then I would love to go with you.”

Ginny nodded and smiled and tried not to clue Luna in to the slightly frantic beating of her heart. “Great, then I’ll meet you in the Main Hall at ten tomorrow?”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“Bye Luna, this is where I get off.” Ginny stepped from the staircase and waved behind her at her friend.

When she had turned the corner — and Luna was no longer in sight – she sighed in relief, shoulders slumping. She had completely forgotten that she should be going to Hogsmeade tomorrow with Hermione. But no matter; what she had said to Luna _was_ true. Just because she and Hermione were dating (“ _dating_ ” her brain annoyingly and unhelpfully supplied) didn’t mean that they needed to spend every waking moment together. Neither one was that into public displays of affection (or at least in their fabricated relationship they weren’t that into public displays of affection). And Hermione _did_ have plans to spend a lot of the day with Harry and Neville; presumably because they were all avoiding Ron, who, over the course of the past few weeks, had only gotten surlier and more annoying to be around. Ginny wasn’t even speaking to him anymore. They didn’t talk in the Common Room, the Great Hall, at practice, or even at games. So far no one had been hexed, so she supposed it wasn’t a _complete_ disaster. But still… she still…

Ginny shook herself. No use thinking like that, anyway.

Good riddance. She didn’t miss him at all.

(She did sort of miss him.)

**

When Ginny climbed down the stairs the next morning she had to chuckle at the sight that greeted her.

Luna looked up at the sound and smiled brightly. “Hello, Ginny,” she called — louder than was strictly necessary — and waved a hand high in the air (as if Ginny needed the help seeing her).

“Love the hat, Luna.” Ginny said, not insincerely. Luna was wearing a hat that was knitted with alternating light pink and silver yarn. The poof on the top of it — comically large and dwarfing Luna’s head — continuously shot sparks, like a thousand jinxes exploding from the top of Luna’s scalp.

Luna smiled and waved her wand towards the accessory. The sparks stopped, but the hat still gave off a faint glow, almost like a bright light shimmering below the surface of a lake.

Luna, for all her eccentricities, _was_ a truly brilliant charms caster; no one could deny that.

“Thank you very much. I thought it would be festive.”

“Well it certainly is.” Ginny gestured out the door with one mitten-covered hand. “Shall we?”

“Yes,” Luna nodded and started off in the direction of the path. The air was crisp and cold — it was late November, after all — but not unseasonable or uncomfortable.

There were already a good number of students making the trek to the village, and Ginny waved at those who she knew (and those who caught her eye) while she and Luna strolled companionably side by side. Luna chattered away next to her, and Ginny provided answers and information when she could, but Luna rarely needed her to respond. The thing about Luna was, she was unquestionably quiet amongst large groups of people, but when you got her by herself, talking about something that truly interested her, she practically never stopped talking. The more time Ginny spent with her one-on-one, the more she began to adore her. Luna was a brilliant witch, an interesting thinker, and wise beyond what most people gave her credit for.

Ginny loved her. She loved talking to her, she loved the way Luna spoke, she loved the strange expressions that came out of her mouth and the far-away look that took over her face whenever Ginny said something particularly interesting. Hanging out with Luna was easily one of the best parts of her day, without a doubt.

She wasn’t “Loony” Luna; she just… her brain just worked differently. But that wasn’t a bad thing. And it didn’t mean she was crazy, or she didn’t know what she was talking about. She just thought differently.

When they got closer to the lights of the town, Ginny asked, “So where are we off to? Sweets, first? I should probably pick up some sugar quills for Hermione too; they’re her favourite.” Luna smiled and nodded but did not speak. She didn’t need to. “And then maybe we could swing by Zoonkos and see if they have anything new in?”

“That sounds just fine, Ginny.” Luna said politely.

Ginny flushed and cleared her throat, “And… then maybe the Three Broomsticks after that? For some lunch? Hermione told me she’d be there at about one…”

Luna gripped Ginny’s hand. “You don’t need to be embarrassed about wanting to see your girlfriend.”

Ginny scoffed indignantly. “Excuse you I am not _embarrassed_ …”

Luna nodded slowly. “Oh yes you are. You’ve turned all red.”

“Well that’s because you won’t stop staring at me.” Ginny muttered and pulled her hand from Luna’s. She brought that same hand up to adjust her hat, just to have something to do with her fingers. “So… Honeydukes?”

“Lead the way,” Luna said, and there was a small smile that still played at her lips which Ginny chose to pointedly ignore.

She wasn’t _embarrassed_ about seeing Hermione. She just… didn’t want Luna to feel left out.

And if she was lying to herself, well… she could pointedly ignore that too.

~~

They stumbled into the Three Broomsticks hours later, cheeks flushed from the cold and laughing under the weight of sweets and Exploding Snap decks.

Ginny took a deep, steadying breath, and cast her eyes around the pub. “Merlin, it’s crowded in here.”

Luna hummed in agreement but immediately started making her way through the crowd and towards a table in the back.

“Where are you going? Luna… hey wait up!” Ginny called, but trailed behind her friend anyway; she often found that, in times like these, Luna was unlikely to explain her reasoning — but that didn’t necessarily mean that what she was doing didn’t make sense.

Sure enough, after a few seconds (and after brushing by a few too many students for Ginny’s liking, to be perfectly honest), a back table appeared in her line of sight. Harry and Neville sat opposite each other, hands wrapped around mugs of butterbeer and talking quietly.

Luna slipped in next to Neville with a quiet greeting, and Ginny planted herself next to Harry with a similar hello.

“You lot seen Hermione?” Ginny asked, scanning the room. “Is she here yet?”

“Yeah she’s up at the bar,” Harry pointed past Ginny’s right shoulder and when she turned, sure enough, Hermione’s wild hair was easily visible amongst a group of winter-wrapped students.

“Who is that she’s talking to?” Luna asked, and Ginny frowned. She hadn’t even realized Hermione was talking to anyone.

Harry shifted next to her. “McLaggen,” he muttered, “he’s been… _forward_ with her recently.”

Sure enough, Cormac McLaggen was next to Hermione at the bar, leaning against the dark wood and towering over her. She was doing her best to angle her body away from him, but he was clearly inside of her space and she was clearly not enjoying it. Hermione was leaning backwards, her spine arched just slightly too much to be comfortable.

Ginny stood from her seat, throwing her coat off of her shoulders and down onto the bench she had previously occupied.

“Ginny, what are you—?”

“Just going to the toilets, Harry. Don’t worry.” But she didn’t look at him, her eyes firmly focused on the scene playing out in front of her. She wasn’t headed to the bathroom and she knew that Harry knew it too.

She weaved her way — as quickly as she dared — through the crowds and towards Hermione and McLaggen at the bar.

“So,” his voice broke through her sphere of awareness as she neared them, “what do you think about coming to that next ‘Slug Club’ party with me? It’ll be right before Christmas… I’m sure you don’t have anyone better to—”

“Hey babe,” Ginny cut in, slipping her arm around Hermione’s waist, “need help with those drinks?” Hermione relaxed against her and let out a long, tense breath. Ginny glanced at her, her eyebrow quirked in question, and at Hermione’s tight smile and nod she turned back to Cormac, glowering now. “Can I help you, McLaggen?”

He sneered at her. “Actually, Weasley, I was sort of talking to Granger here, so—”

“Yeah I don’t think she wanted to be talking to you any longer.”

“Well I think that that’s entirely up to her—”

“It was nice seeing you, Cormac,” Hermione said bluntly, leaning further into Ginny’s side. Ginny’s grip around her waist tightened, and she saw McLaggen’s eyes drop down to the place where their bodies connected.

His eyebrows shot up. “Oh, so it’s like that, then,” he grinned lasciviously. “Well I’m not opposed to bringing her into the mix, Granger; all you had to do was say so.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “We’re done here, McLaggen.” She slipped her arm from Hermione’s waist in order to slide their fingers together in a loose grip. “C’mon, ‘Mione.” She moved back towards their table, pulling Hermione behind her and away from the eyes of Cormac McLaggen.

“Thank you,” Hermione muttered, “he just really won’t leave me alone lately.”

“It’s no problem. You can always send up a signal if you need saving from creeps like that.”

Hermione took a few quick steps, catching up to Ginny’s longer legs and wrapping her free arm more securely around Ginny’s, hugging the limb tightly to her. “And what if I need saving from creeps like _you_?”

Ginny turned on her in mock-affront. “I would _never_.”

“I’ll save you from Ginny, Hermione,” Harry offered as they slid onto the empty bench next to him. “This one has a terrible temper; it’s no wonder you don’t want to deal with her.” Ginny smacked him.

“What did Cormac want, Hermione?” Luna asked from across the table, stealing Neville’s butterbeer to take a long sip.

Hermione shrugged non-committedly. “Oh who knows.”

“He was inviting her to Slughorn’s party with him.” Ginny cut in.

Hermione glared at her and muttered, “Traitor,” to which Ginny only laughed.

“Oh I suppose that was nice of him,” Luna offered.

“Not when I’m planning on going with somebody else.”

Ginny’s stomach fell, but she tried not to let it show on her face. “Oh?” She asked, trying to appear nonchalant, “And… who might that be?”

Hermione stared at her for several long moments when it suddenly hit her.

Of course. Hermione was taking _her_. They were “dating,” after all.

Merlin she was daft.

She laughed it off, her throat a little tighter than was probably perfectly normal. “Only joking.” A tense smile. “I know I’m your plus-one.”

Hermione relaxed next to her. “Well,” she said, “ _technically_ you have your own invitation, so neither of us is a ‘plus one’ to the other.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “You and your damned logic.”

As the conversation moved on to other topics, Ginny found herself watching Hermione more often than she cared to admit. Her hair bounced in the hot air of the tavern; her cheeks darkened as she engaged Luna in a particularly energetic debate as to the existence of… some creature Ginny had missed the name of ( _“Just because you’ve never_ seen _one, Hermione, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist somewhere in the world”_ ). Hermione laughed and stole sips from Harry’s drink and played with the buttons of her coat and, Merlin, she was beautiful.

It dawned on Ginny then — shockingly and abruptly — that perhaps she was developing serious feelings for Hermione Granger, outside of… whatever crush she had been harboring for however long she had been harboring it. And she did know about the crush, had long since come to terms with the realization that her admiration for Hermione had crossed some sort of invisible border out of the realm of strictly _friendship_ and into something a little more… _more_.

As Hermione slipped her hand over Ginny’s on top of the cold table, and as her stomach did flip-flops against her will and her skin caught on fire beneath the touch, it dawned on her that she might even be _falling in love_ with Hermione.

And when Hermione leaned over to kiss her cheek and Ginny lost all ability to speak, well…

 _Fuck_.

She was fucked.

**

“Hermione, I need your help.”

“Ginny?” Hermione blinked at her friend, shaking herself out of the lazy stupor the warm, bright fire had lulled her into. It was nearing Christmas break and a soft blanket of snow dusted the outside grounds, casting a sharp chill over the castle. In the Common Room, curled under a blanket in front of the fire early in the afternoon, Hermione was practically alone. Most everyone was at lunch, or else playing outside in the snow, or in the library studying for their few remaining exams before the holiday. Hermione had just finished a draft of her potions essay (which she was fairly confident would get full marks from Slughorn) and so had instead moved on to a book. She had recently borrowed _Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions_ from Madame Pomfrey (she lied and said that she was interested in pursuing a career as a Healer in order to actually _get_ the book, which of course was blatantly _not_ true — and she did feel sort of guilty about that — but she thought it was absolutely _ridiculous_ that no class covered even _basic_ healing spells and potions at a primary level, and so Hermione was attempting to supplement her education the only way she knew how — like any practical student would).

Ginny swept the books and scrap pieces of parchment to the side — Hermione’s indignant and protesting “Ginny!” went completely ignored — and sat on the ottoman, her back to the blazing fire.

Hermione glared. “Why do you have to do that? I would have listened to you if you just sat next to me.” Hermione sighed and looked forlornly at her disturbed books.

Ginny waved her off. “Not important. Also, I need your full attention, so—” She plucked the thick book from Hermione’s hands.

“Okay, _now_ you’re just doing it on purpose to antagonize—”

“Ron told my mother.”

Hermione frowned. “Ron did what?”

“Ronald Billius Weasley, my _brother_ — who is dead to me now, by the way — told my mother that I was dating you. That _we_ ,” she gestured violently between the pair of them, half a metre apart, “are dating. _Seriously_ dating.”

“He did… but _why_?” Hermione’s voice was high-pitched with panic.

“I don’t know!” Ginny almost yelled. When Parvati Patil cleared her throat pointedly from across the room, Ginny sighed and lowered her voice. “I don’t _know_ why he did it. Maybe he was complaining, maybe he was trying to ruin my life, _I don’t know_.” Ginny glowered. “But now my mother is _insisting_ that you come for part of Christmas break.”

“She’s doing _what_?” Ginny thrust a letter into Hermione’s empty hands. Hermione held the parchment at arm’s length, almost like she was afraid it would bite her. “Doesn’t she know that I dated her son and now I’m dating — well, _pretend_ dating but she… whatever. Doesn’t she think it might be… _awkward_ to have her son’s ex — her son’s ex who is now _dating her son’s sister_ — over for Christmas?”

“Molly Weasley doesn’t really think about things like that.” Ginny gestured to the crumpled letter. “Read that and tell me what you think. I don’t know what mum’s playing at with a letter like that but…” she waved her hand. “Well, just read it.”

Hermione did. It went as follows:

 

_Ginevra,_

“Well that’s not good, she only calls you ‘Ginevra’ when—”

“When she’s right put-out about something, I know. Keep reading.”

Hermione cleared her throat and continued:

 

_Ginevra,_

_I received a surprising letter from Ron last night. As you know, we rarely if ever get owls from your brother, but what was more surprising was what he had to say. He wrote to tell me that you have begun dating someone new. Your father and I are delighted. Please tell Hermione that we expect to see her over break — not on Christmas, if she is unable, because of course she will probably want to spend it with her parents — but that if she would be so kind as to come for the New Year’s celebration, we would be very pleased._

_Yours,_

_Mum_

_P.S. Please tell Hermione that if her parents would like to join her, we would love to have them. Also, your father says he has many questions about the intricacies of dentistry._

Hermione put the letter down. “Well that was… that was nice, I suppose.”

Ginny gaped at her. “Nice? That was _nice_?”

“Well… she _did_ say they were delighted. I mean, would you have preferred a howler?”

“Um…” Ginny looked at her as if she had grown a second head, “kind of, Hermione, yeah.”

“Why on Earth would you want—?”

“Hermione…” Ginny picked up the letter in her fist and shook it in the air between them, “my mother has never, and I mean _never_ , in the twenty years she has been sending children to Hogwarts, written less than a two-foot letter to one of us. She writes nonsense, platitudes and well-wishes and gossip and news on dad’s work and recipes and nine times out of ten it’s accompanied by chocolates or sweets or tarts or something knitted!” Ginny stared at Hermione, completely serious. “She sent me barely a paragraph and _nothing else_. Usually Errol is half-dead when he gets here from carrying all the junk. And this time…” She looked down at the now practically ruined parchment sitting in her lap, “Why didn’t she say more?” She asked softly, and it was only then that Hermione realized exactly how much this bothered her friend.

She was quick to excuse the behavior. “Maybe she was busy, or… or maybe she was surprised. I mean…” Hermione felt a flush rising to her cheeks, “I mean you don’t really _date_ that often, or that seriously,” Ginny’s head shot up. “Not that that’s a bad thing!” She hastened. “It’s just that… I don’t know, maybe she was… maybe she didn’t know how to react to you dating a girl.”

Ginny frowned down at her hands. “It’s unlikely but… I mean I guess it’s not _entirely_ impossible.” Ginny sighed and moved so that she was now sitting next to Hermione on the large couch, rather than across from her. She shifted so she was tucked more firmly into Hermione’s side. Hermione patted her on the top of the head in a confusing but endearing attempt at comfort. “I would have thought she’d have a few more supportive words though, considering…”

“Considering her only daughter has found love?” Hermione teased.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Considering I’m dating a woman who clearly cannot make up her mind, has poor grades and even _worse_ ambition…”

Hermione pulled away in mock-affront. “Excuse you, I am a catch.”

Ginny laughed and pulled her back into position, returning her head to its resting place on Hermione’s shoulder. “Yes dear, you’re smart and beautiful and anyone would be lucky to have you.”

If the words she spoke were _just_ on the dangerous side of being too honest, well… Ginny was not going to acknowledge that.

**

Hermione’s hands shook as they ran through her hair, though she tried to fight the tremors down.

It was only her and Parvati in their dorm room. Lavender was… who knew where Lavender was. Probably off somewhere with Ron.

Hermione slid her hands down her light blue dress, smoothing away nonexistent wrinkles. Parvati was reading a book on her bed (or pretending to; Hermione couldn’t tell), and they did not exchange words. If Hermione was being honest, they rarely spoke. Despite living in the same room for a consistent 6 years, Hermione rarely spoke to the other 6th year Gryffindor girls, though _they_ frequently spoke — and loudly — to each other.

It wasn’t a malicious kind of thing, they just… didn’t have much in common. Hermione had never really been one for idle gossip and giggling about boys, and that was fine. She didn’t really wear makeup, which was also fine. She was pretty intense, very driven, and almost always caught up in her school work or in some life-or-death adventure with Harry and Ron. All of this was _fine_ , and the fact that her roommates differed greatly from her on all of these points of interest was _also_ fine, it just meant that they didn’t really have a lot to talk about.

But that wasn’t really a deterrent. In fact, up until this year (and the whole Ron and Lavender debacle) Hermione had gotten along quite well with the girls she lived with. Sure, they didn’t necessarily talk all the time or get meals together or hang out between classes, but they had a very nice symbiotic relationship of polite acknowledgement. She occasionally borrowed a rubber band from Parvati, and on two occasions had lent a quill to Lavender, and earlier in their Hogwarts career they had sometimes worked on assignments together, but aside from that… they weren’t really friends, and none of them really _wanted_ to be friends. Lavender and Parvati had each other and Hermione had Harry and Ron and Ginny… and never the two groups had mixed.

Well… until recently.

Hermione took in a deep, steadying breath that she hoped went unnoticed in the silent room (it didn’t). She was nervous, or at least, that’s what the butterflies in her stomach were telling her. She was nervous and her hands were shaking and her palms were sweating and she was now wondering if maybe she _shouldn’t_ be wearing the dress that she was wearing because she wasn’t sure if—

“You look beautiful, Hermione,” Parvati’s quiet voice called from behind her and Hermione startled, glancing up in the mirror and meeting the other girl’s eyes. Parvati had dropped her book down to the bed, facedown and open to mark her place.

Hermione managed a weak smile. “You think?”

Parvati smiled and nodded. “Ginny’s a lucky girl.”

Hermione felt her skin darken at the comment. She looked down and fiddled with her fingers. “Thank you, Parvati,” she said sincerely, “I know that… that we aren’t really the best…” She floundered with her words and made eye contact with her again in the mirror, hoping that she wouldn’t have to continue.

She didn’t. Parvarti’s eyes were kind, and her expression soft and understanding.

Parvati stood and walked towards her, placing a cool hand on Hermione’s overheated shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I’ve always considered you my friend,” she said quietly.

Hermione smiled — it was a little pained but mostly just relieved — and she said, “I’ve always considered you my friend, too.”

Parvati nodded. “And I am _really_ sorry about, you know…” She gestured towards Lavender’s bed and Hermione nodded. “She’s my best friend but she can be truly…” Parvati trailed off but Hermione knew what she was trying to say.

“I know.”

“I know you miss Ron. I miss Lavender, too.” They stared at each other in the mirror, joined for the first time by some kind of deep comradery that no one else was able to understand. “And I’m sorry that… that people are terrible. It shouldn’t… it shouldn’t matter _who_ you’ve fallen in love with. I know with the whole… with the Ron thing it must be…” There was a long moment of tense silence, before she continued hastily, “But I think it’s brilliant, you know? That… that you dated Ron but that now you… you know who you are and that you… you and Ginny…” She coughed uncomfortably and gripped Hermione’s shoulder tightly. She laughed awkwardly, and begged, “Please stop me whenever you like.”

Hermione smiled. “Thank you, for saying that. It… I don’t hear it a whole lot. It’s nice to just… be reminded, sometimes, you know?” Hermione whispered and Parvati nodded and squeezed her shoulder once more before she pulled her hand away, the spell between them broken.

“That dress is amazing,” Parvati said, drawing backwards and smiling more fully at Hermione. “Ginny won’t know what hit her when she sees you.”

Hermione flushed with (unexpected) pleasure at the words. She fiddled with her earrings. “Well, that’s… that’s good, I suppose.”

Parvati grinned and Hermione smiled back. She suddenly felt much, _much_ better.

~~

“Woah,” Ginny breathed, all air escaping her lungs in a mad rush, leaving her chest aching and hollow but also remarkably, impossibly full.

“Chin off the floor, Gin,” Harry whispered from next to her, but he seemed far too delighted by her current predicament to _actually_ help her.

Hermione was practically _gliding_ down the stairs from the girls’ dorms. The fire roaring behind Ginny’s back was heating her skin to the point where she thought she was about to catch on fire.

 _Fuck_ , Hermione looked beautiful.

Her eyes met Ginny’s right as she hit the bottom step, and the small, nervous smile she shot her way caused something to explode deep down in Ginny’s stomach and her knees almost collapsed under her.

Fuck, Hermione looked _beautiful_.

Hermione greeted her with a slow, lingering kiss to her cheek, the long dangling earrings she wore tickling the place just under Ginny’s chin, where her neck met her jaw, and it was for this reason (and this reason alone) that she shivered, even in the (suddenly) boiling hot room.

“You look amazing,” she breathed against Hermione’s ear, and the other girl chuckled and kissed her again, this time _much_ closer to the corner of her mouth (and there it was again, that feeling of catching on fire).

She pulled away and wrapped her arms tightly around Harry, giving him a firm squeeze.

“You look beautiful, Hermione,” Harry said brightly when they pulled apart, spinning her once around. Her dress flared out and she threw her head back, eyes closed as she laughed and Ginny didn’t know if she would ever breathe again.

“You’re quite dashing yourself,” she laughed with a wink. “Now, where are we meeting your lovely date?”

“Main Hall. We’re gonna grab her on the way to the dungeons.”

“You ready to dodge the advances of Romilda Vane all night?” Hermione grinned and teased as she looped her arm through Ginny’s elbow, leaning some of her weight on her taller companion. (Ginny was _very_ glad she had decided on heels, because Hermione was wearing a silver strappy pair that, were she un-assisted, would put them at the same height. And the dress was one thing, but Hermione being her height? Ginny didn’t think she had the strength to get through that.)

Harry groaned and led the way out of the portrait hole. “Don’t remind me.”

Ginny should really say something. She could contribute to this conversation. She could make fun of Harry just as well as Hermione could. She should say…

But she was still reeling from the feeling of the fire at her back and Hermione’s lips against her cheek and Hermione in _that dress_ and—

Merlin.

Fuck.

She was _so_ fucked.

~~

“Oh you all look _wonderful_!” Luna exclaimed as the trio descended into the Main Hall.

Ginny, who had finally regained control of both her breath and her mind, managed a grin, and a sincere, “Thanks, Luna. You look excellent as well.”

Harry seemed almost surprised that Luna was wearing… something incredibly normal. Her dress was a shimmering light pink, and she was wearing a pair of simple white high-top trainers. Nothing was moving on its own and no accessory was emitting animal sounds, so Ginny thought it was one of Luna’s more successful ensembles.

She smiled dreamily, which turned delighted as Harry offered her his arm. “Oh thank you, Harry. I’ve never been to a party before. Do you think it’ll be lovely?”

Harry, Hermione, and Ginny all exchanged skeptical glances. They’d all been to Slug Club gatherings before and… well, it wasn’t exactly their preferred evening activity.

But they weren’t about to say that to Luna.

“Yes I suppose it will be,” Ginny offered kindly, slipping her hand down to link her fingers with Hermione’s. She bent over and whispered in her ear, “You are not leaving me alone for a _second_ once we get in there, do you hear me? Not one second. And if anyone — and I mean _anyone_ — unsavory approaches me — Vampire or Slughorn or Slytherin Quidditch player, what have you — you are coming down with a very _severe_ case of food poisoning.”

Hermione laughed and squeezed Ginny’s hand. “You have my word. I’ve never had food poisoning before but I’m sure I can imagine.”

“Yes. Lots of groaning, clutching your stomach, you know.”

“Oy!” Harry called from up ahead, and Ginny looked up, surprised by how far behind they had managed to fall. Harry and Luna were now several paces ahead of them, and Harry had turned around to glare at them. “You lot already planning on how to get out of here early?”

Ginny raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you know me at all, Harry?”

Harry sighed and grumbled, “So not fair,” before Luna dragged him off in the direction of Slughorn’s office. Music wafted from under the doorway, and the sound of loud chatter was distinctive even from so far away.

“Remember, food poisoning,” Ginny muttered and Hermione laughed.

Harry knocked on the door.

A few seconds later it was thrown open, and a ruddy-faced Slughorn stood on the other side, beaming at them.

“Harry m’boy!” He practically shouted, throwing his arms out and spilling his drink at the same time. He ushered them inside quickly. “Come in, come in, all of you!” Harry smiled tightly and slipped in past Slughorn’s looming body. “And who is this lovely lady?” He beamed at Luna.

“Luna Lovegood, sir. She’s a fifth year.”

Slughorn nodded, still smiling, and stuck his large hand out, grasping and engulfing and strangling Luna’s much smaller one in a firm (and very long) handshake. “I am absolutely _delighted_ , my dear.”

Luna did a little curtsey and Ginny had to fight a laugh at the absurd gesture paired with Luna’s completely serious expression. Hermione was having a similar problem next to her.

“And Ms. Granger, Ms. Weasley,” Slughorn turned to them, “how lovely to see you both. Truly lovely!” He took a step forwards and Ginny could smell the firewhisky on his breath. She fought a grimace.

“Thank you for the invitation, Professor,” she said as sincerely as she could muster.

Slughorn beamed between the two of them. “Might I just say how absolutely… _chuffed_ I was to learn of your romantic relationship?” Hermione and Ginny glanced at each other.

“Umm…” Hermione cleared her throat, “thank you, sir.”

“Well, whenever two such brilliant minds as yours meet…” he made a vague gesture with his hands that Ginny thought was supposed to imitate an explosion of some sort (but came across only as a wild attempt to maintain his balance). Harry practically _snorted_ from somewhere off to her right. She wanted to glare at him but didn’t dare look away from her professor’s earnest endearment.

“Well… that’s what I aim for in a relationship,” she said half-heartedly, desperately wanting to escape this conversation.

“You know Gwenog Jones harbors similar same-sex tendencies as you do, Ms. Weasley.” He winked and Ginny pulled a face. “Something else you two have in common, besides being _marvelous_ Quidditch players with an affinity for hexing those who disagree with you.” He chuckled and Ginny flushed.

“I didn’t know Gwenog Jones dated women,” Hermione whispered into her ear, and Ginny shrugged.

“Me either,” she whispered back, “but then again… she _is_ a beater for the only all-female Quidditch team in the league, so…” Hermione smacked her on the arm. “Oh no, Hermione, are you feeling ill?” She asked louder, imploringly, glancing to Slughorn who was now looking dazedly around the room and not paying them very much attention at all.

“Oh no I feel lovely. Never better.” Hermione grinned and Ginny glowered.

“Traitor,” she muttered. Harry and Luna had long ago taken the distraction Ginny and Hermione had so unwittingly provided and slipped deeper into the room. The two girls, however, had yet to leave the doorway.

“Oh look, Professor, I think the cheese plate has just come out,” Hermione offered through her laughter, pointing deeper into the large and crowded room.

Slughorn scurried off with hardly even a friendly wave and then they were thankfully, mercifully alone.

Ginny smacked Hermione on the arm. “What about our _system_?”

“I’m sorry, Ginny, it was too funny. He’s hilarious when he’s plastered.”

“Yeah, well…” Ginny glanced around the room and grinned devilishly, “Well Cormac McLaggen is coming this way. See if I save _you_ this time around.”

She made to move away off into the room, but Hermione had a death grip on her arm and growled through gritted teeth, “Don’t you _dare_ , Ginevra.”

“Oh it’s ‘Ginevra’ now, is it?” She asked lightly as Hermione dragged her further into the lowly-lit room.

“It’s ‘Ginevra’ whenever I’m right put-out about something, yes.”

“Oh Merlin, I’m dating my mother.”

“I happen to find your mother to be a very lovely, respectable witch, so I take that as a compliment.”

“Wasn’t really meant to be one, but whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess.”

Hermione rolled her eyes but she was smiling, and so was Ginny, and she didn’t think she had ever felt so light and… and _carefree_ before. Even if they were at a Slug Club party with a lot of people she didn’t know or even particularly like, it didn’t matter, because… because Hermione was on her arm and Harry and Luna were around here somewhere and there was plenty of food and the alcohol was surprisingly unsupervised (which Ginny made sure to take advantage of, quickly swiping two glasses of something bright and sweet-smelling that burned sour down her throat and caused Hermione to cough after she had thrown it back with a grimace) and the room was crowded and stuffy, yes, but it was also _warm_. The ceiling and walls had been draped with emerald, crimson, and gold hangings, giving the appearance of being in a vast tent. The room was bathed in the red light cast by an ornate gold lamp dangling from the centre of the ceiling in which real fairies were fluttering, each a brilliant speck of light. Loud singing accompanied by what sounded like mandolins issued from a distant corner; a haze of pipe smoke hung over several elderly warlocks deep in conversation, and a number of house-elves were negotiating their way squeakily through the forest of knees, obscured by the heavy silver platters of food they were bearing, so that they looked like little roving tables.

And Hermione was _warm_ on her arm, and the alcohol was warm in her stomach, and Ginny was flying higher than she had ever gone on her broom.

~~

It was almost an hour later — and at least 30 minutes since either of them had caught sight of Harry — and Ginny had _just_ managed to pull them away from a very dull conversation with someone on the Wizengamot ( _“You can’t just_ not _talk to these people, Ginny, they’re_ important _,”_ Hermione had protested) when she spotted a tall head making its way towards them purposefully, and she spun on her heel.

“McLaggen alert,” Ginny hissed, and Hermione dared a glance over her shoulder.

She groaned. “Why won’t he just leave me _alone_?”

Ginny glanced around quickly, her eyes fixating on a heavy piece of fabric draped against the wall not that far from them. “Quick, back here.” She crouched low to the ground, Hermione mirroring her position, using the large crowd as a human-shield against McLaggen and his giant-esque height. She pulled Hermione behind her and they slipped behind the curtain, sliding along the cool wall in the dark (Hermione giggling behind her the whole way) until they popped out on the other end of the party in a fairly dark and removed corner. They were close to the door of Slughorn’s office, but since this spot was furthest from the food, it was also the least-inhabited.

Hermione laughed and spun Ginny around, pulling her into a tight hug. She was wobbling on her heels a little bit, and Ginny slipped steady arms around her waist in order to right her balance.

She laughed and Hermione hummed gratefully into her shoulder. “How much have you had to drink there, ‘Mione?”

“Not much to a little bit,” she supplied drowsily, “my feet just hurt.”

“And I think you’re a _little_ plastered.”

“Hmm…” Hermione hummed into her shoulder, “Well I certainly wouldn’t not say that it isn’t impossible.”

Ginny laughed. “A triple-negative? I’ve done it… I’ve broken Hermione Granger.”

“You haven’t broken me, Ginny,” Hermione murmured, pulling back and tilting her head up just slightly, just enough to meet Ginny’s gaze directly. Ginny realized they had been swaying all this time to the quiet plucking of the mandolins in the background, feet planted but definitely rocking to the music.

She was _dancing_ with Hermione.

“You haven’t broken me,” Hermione whispered again, quieter, her gaze dropping from Ginny’s eyes to rest on her… on… _Oh_.

“Oh,” she breathed, her tongue darting out to wet her lips involuntarily. There was no one around, no one watching them…

Hermione glanced at the ceiling. “Mistletoe,” she said, and sure enough, when Ginny looked up a bright green sprout was floating above them, twisting in the soft light of the room and seeming to grow larger and larger the longer she watched it.

“Oh,” she repeated, but Hermione was getting closer to her, pushing herself up just slightly, just enough to…

Ginny’s eyes fluttered closed when Hermione’s lips claimed hers in the softest kiss she’d ever been given. Hermione’s lips were warm and full and they were kissing so gently, so… so _lovingly_ … and Ginny’s head was reeling and she thought she was probably much drunker than she had originally figured, because it felt like they were twirling in circles, like they were spinning hundreds of metres up when they _had_ to be firmly planted on the ground, when Ginny knew for a fact that they were in the corner of Horace Slughorn’s office kissing under the mistletoe and not soaring through the skies.

Hermione opened her mouth and her tongue slid out, ghosting over Ginny’s lips once — just once — but once was enough to send a shiver down her spine and make her skin erupt into gooseflesh.

Ginny slid her hand up, weaving her fingers through Hermione’s hair, and opened her mouth to reciprocate, when—

“Hermione!” Harry’s breathless voice yelled from practically right next to them and they leapt apart as if burned.

Ginny stumbled backwards, knees shaky and breath laboured. Hermione looked no better, her eyes wide and bright and her hair just the slightest bit wild.

They turned to where Harry was appearing in front of them, slipping furtively from under his cloak.

Hermione blinked and shook herself. “What… Harry what is it?”

“Malfoy is a Death Eater.”

Hermione and Ginny both recoiled, sobering instantly. “He’s _what_?”

Harry nodded, practically vibrating with unbridled excitement. “He’s a Death Eater. I followed him… I saw him talking to Snape… they were… they were planning something. Hermione, I think—”

But Hermione cut him off quickly. “Are you _mad_? Not here. We can’t… not here.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the room. She threw a look over her shoulder at Ginny, who stood frozen in the dark corner of the office, head still rolling from that kiss that had…

Hermione’s eyes were soft and questioning and… and apologetic? (But that couldn’t be right.)

Merlin, Ginny was a little drunk.

“Go,” she said when Hermione paused in the doorway. “You go. I’ll get Luna and tell her. I’ll… I’ll meet you in the Common Room later, okay?”

Hermione nodded but still lingered for one more long moment, her eyes refusing to leave Ginny’s.

Harry tugged on her arm. “Hermione, come _on_ ,” he begged, and Hermione blinked, and then she was gone.

**

Despite what Ginny had promised, and despite Harry’s excitable nature, they did _not_ meet up in the Common Room later. By the time Ginny had finished walking Luna back to Ravenclaw Tower, and by the time she had gathered the courage to return to her _own_ house, it was very late — past one — and the Common Room was empty save for a softly snoring Neville by the fire, still dressed up in his party best. Ginny smiled and fought the disappointment rising in her throat like bile and shook him awake. “Neville, wake up,” she murmured in a quiet voice. “It’s late. You should head to bed.”

He jolted and blinked himself awake blearily. “Ginny?” He asked, voice hoarse and thick with sleep. “Wuttre you doin’ down here?”

She laughed. “I’m getting you, you dolt. Come on, up up.” She kicked his legs and he stood on shaky knees and tried (unsuccessfully) to suppress a huge yawn. “You have to pack tomorrow, Neville. Go and sleep the party off.”

He smiled at her behind heavily-lidded eyes. “Thanks, Gin. Don’t know why I was sleeping down here.”

“Well it was some party, wasn’t it?” She asked and he smiled at her kindly and unknowingly.

“It definitely was.” He made his way towards the boys’ stairs. “You go to sleep soon too, okay?” He called and Ginny nodded though he wasn’t looking at her. He stopped unexpectedly at the stairs and turned back to her, struck by some idea he felt the need to act upon. “You look beautiful, by the way. I don’t know if anyone told you tonight.”

Something that felt shockingly like tears pricked behind her eyes, and when she smiled at Neville it was heavy with something he didn’t quite understand (she wasn’t sure she understood it either). “Thanks, Neville. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

He nodded and disappeared upstairs.

She did not get to sleep for several long, anxious hours.

~~

Hermione and Ginny didn’t get another chance to talk, _really_ talk, that is, until they had boarded the train towards home two days later.

“I’m sorry,” Ginny whispered when they slipped into an empty compartment. When Hermione looked startled and confused (Ginny didn’t blame her, she had sort of started this conversation unprompted and out of nowhere), Ginny elaborated. “I’m sorry for kissing you at Slughorn’s stupid party. It was dumb and I… I’m _sorry_ , Hermione.”

The confusion did not leave Hermione’s face. “Why are you apologizing?”

“I don’t know it was… it felt…” _different_ , she wanted to say, but she didn’t.

“Ginny, I’ve told you before, the kissing doesn’t bother me when we’re in public.”

Something deep inside Ginny’s body sunk to subterranean levels. “Right,” she managed to half-choke out, dropping onto one of the empty seats. “Yeah, sorry. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

“ _Stop_ apologizing,” Hermione implored kindly, sitting down opposite her and reaching across the empty space between them to grab Ginny’s hand.

“Sorry.” She cringed. “Ugh, it’s hard to apologize for apologizing.”

Hermione laughed. “Don’t I know it.”

It was quiet for a few moments. “Look, Hermione,” Ginny ventured, suddenly feeling very courageous, “I just wanted to… well I thought I should tell you that I think—”

The compartment door slid open. Hermione retracted her hand and Ginny leaned back in her seat.

“Got room for a few more?” Harry asked, grinning sheepishly and glancing between them.

“Of course!” Hermione exclaimed and relocated herself to Ginny’s left side, opening up an entire bench for Harry and—

“Ron?” Ginny asked, spotting familiar red hair behind Harry’s back.

Harry shot her a look and mouthed, _“Okay?”_ and Ginny shrugged. As long as Ron wasn’t going to be a complete cock, she didn’t mind if he sat with them for a few hours. Yeah, she was still mad at him, he was being a right git to her, but… well. Hard to be completely mad at a bloke who wouldn’t even look at you.

Ginny felt more _apathy_ towards him than anything else.

Harry entered then, followed by Ron and Neville and Luna. As they were all between 15 and 17 years of age, fitting all six of them into one compartment was going to be tight. Ginny slid a little closer to Hermione (she knew she was taking advantage of the situation but she refused to think about that). They piled themselves onto the empty seats.

“Long term, yeah?” Harry volunteered, his eyes quickly glancing between Hermione and Ginny and Ron, who sat staring out of the window and pointedly refusing to look at either his sister or his ex-girlfriend.

“Yeah,” Neville answered, breaking the long silence. “I’m glad to be going home. I could use a good long break.”

“Couldn’t we all?” Harry laughed, but it was clearly strained.

Ginny watched her brother, unsure of _why_ exactly he was sitting with them, instead of — “Where’s Lavender?” She asked suddenly.

Ron whipped his head to face her and she realized with a start that it was the first time he’d looked her eyes in the eyes in almost two months.

He looked at her for several long moments, as if weighing whether or not she was taking the mickey and if he could actually answer her without getting hexed. He seemed to decide that he could. “We’re in a row,” he grumbled, and turned back to the window.

“I’m sorry,” Ginny said, and it wasn’t dishonest at all.

Ron shrugged but didn’t say anything more. At least he didn’t argue with her, or shout, which Ginny could count as a small victory. And though he didn’t say anything else for the rest of the train ride, he at least unfurled himself towards the end, relaxing on the bench and even brushing shoulders with Harry rather than bunching up on himself and refusing to interact with them. He even laughed at something Luna said when they were about an hour out of King’s Cross, and the relieved breath Hermione let out next to her was enough to make Ginny’s heart feel heavy and slow-beating in her chest.

“Better get changed,” Harry finally volunteered after a quiet half-hour towards the end of their trip. “We’re nearly there.”

They all stood and moved about the cabin, grabbing their Muggle clothes and storing their cloaks. Ginny caught Hermione’s eye and gestured out the door with her head. Hermione nodded and followed her out while the others talked quietly to themselves and swapped out their outfits.

“I’m sorry we didn’t really get to talk,” Ginny said quietly as she pulled a knit jumper over her head. “I wanted to… well I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

Hermione smiled. “I’m sorry too. I feel like we haven’t gotten a lot of time to ourselves, recently.”

Boy was that ever true. Ginny wouldn’t admit it, not willingly (not even under torture), but she _had_ been avoiding solitary time with Hermione of late. Though she couldn’t really muss out why.

(Yes she could. She was avoiding Hermione because she couldn’t stop thinking about her and it was freaking her out. She might be _falling in love_ with Hermione.)

(She was terrified.)

(And every moment they spent alone together was another moment when she might do something ridiculously stupid, like touch her or kiss her or _tell_ her…)

Ginny cleared her throat. “So I’ll see you for New Year’s, then?”

Hermione smiled and nodded. “Send Pig my way and I’ll let you know what day I’ll show up.”

“I don’t know if Ron’ll let me use Pig to send you letters.”

Hermione laughed, but Ginny could hear the sadness lingering behind it. “Harry will lend you Hedwig; I’m sure of it.”

“Yes I will!” Harry called from inside the compartment. Hermione and Ginny both jumped. They hadn’t known anyone could hear them, or that anyone was paying attention to what they were saying.

“So…” Ginny rubbed the back of her neck and fought the colour rising in her cheeks. “So… soon?”

Hermione pulled Ginny into a tight hug. “Soon, I promise,” she whispered into Ginny’s ear.

“Is Harry looking at us?” Ginny murmured back, not pulling back from the embrace.

“No, but Ron and Luna are.”

Ginny nodded, drew back (her back was to the door so she was taking Hermione’s word on blind faith), and lifted her hand to cup Hermione’s cheek. Hermione tilted her head up and met Ginny’s lips easily — they were so used to this level of physical contact that it hardly phased them anymore — and they kissed softly and sweetly for several long seconds.

Ginny’s lips slid against Hermione’s in an unhurried, relaxed movement. She felt something pinch her bottom lip (was Hermione _biting_ her?) when someone cleared their throat from off to the side.

They pulled apart but did not move away from each other. Ginny was breathing heavier than she probably should have been — after all, they had only kissed for a few seconds; _hardly_ enough to get breathless over. Hermione’s cheeks were just dark enough for Ginny to notice that they had changed colour at all.

“Sorry, guys, but…” Neville’s voice came from behind them, and they both turned to look at him. He flushed. “You’re sort of… blocking the… um… corridor.”

Hermione laughed. “Sorry, Neville. We’ll get out of your way.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry I really didn’t mean to bother you.”

Ginny shook her head. “You weren’t bothering us, Neville.”

He scooted by them, eyes averted. “Well then… um… carry on.” He blushed harder — if that was possible — and scurried down the hallway and away from them.

“We should stop anyway. Don’t want to cause too much of a scene,” Hermione offered logically.

“I thought you were born to cause scenes.”

Hermione shoved her playfully. “Get your trunk. We’ll be there in a minute.”

And she did, quickly and without question. Because she would do whatever Hermione asked of her, no matter what it may be. And Merlin if that didn’t terrify her right along with everything else.

~~

“Ginny dear! Lovely, _lovely_ to see you! Welcome back!”

Ginny smiled as her father wrapped her in a tight hug. She laughed into his shoulder while her mum fussed with Ron next to her. “Hey there, Dad.”

He took a step back, grinning as he held her at arm’s length, running his eyes up and down her figure. “You look well. Taller.”

Ginny shrugged under his soft hands. “Guess I’m not done growing.”

“Arthur, stop hogging the girl!” Molly batted her husband away and brought Ginny to her, embracing her fully in kind. “You’re too thin,” she muttered into a curtain of Ginny’s hair that blocked her face and muffled her voice.

Ginny rolled her eyes but allowed her mother to fuss over her. “You always say that, Mum. You know being thin isn’t _actually_ a bad thing, right?”

“Yes, well… it _is_ lovely to see you, no matter how thin you’ve gotten.” Mrs. Weasley pulled away and patted her twice on the cheek. She then glanced around, brows furrowed. “Where’s… where’s Hermione, dear?”

Ginny’s eyebrows furrowed at the strange tone of voice. “We said goodbye on the train. She’s going home for a few days and then coming to Grimmauld Place with the rest of us for the New Year.”

Mrs. Weasley nodded but in a distracted way, and almost immediately she turned away from Ginny to grab Pig’s cage and lead them out of the station, all without another word to her daughter. Ginny frowned, pushing her trolly to keep up even as her bustling mother called over her shoulder, “We’re really trying to decorate the house up nicely!” Harry fell into step next to her, knocking her shoulder lightly and shooting her a small smile. “It’s cleaner than you remember,” her mother continued, “Remus and Tonks have been lovely, helping around the place, but Kreacher…” she continued to rattle off words and discuss the advantages and disadvantages between scrubbing dishes by hand or by magic (“Well you know, magic is so much faster, but the _satisfaction_ of doing it the Muggle way… and they really do get much cleaner…”).

Ginny could not quite understand what exactly about her mother was unsettling her so much, but she knew that it was _something_. Molly Weasley was acting _very_ strange, and Ginny could not understand why.

**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Location change for Christmas 6th year. In "The Half Blood Prince" they have Christmas at the Burrow, but here they use Grimmauld Place.

**

She loved her family, she really did, but if Ginny had to spend another _hour_ in this cramped house with the lot of them she was going to lose her bloody mind.

She missed the Burrow. She missed the pond, and the open fields in the back where she and her brothers would play Quidditch on cold December mornings and on hot June evenings, and she missed the way the smell of her mum’s cooking would waft up the stairs in the early morning, and she missed her bedroom, and she missed the warmth of reading by the fire, bundled against the cold snow and the howling winds…

And she loved her family, she really did, but Grimmauld Place just wasn’t the same.

It was dark and dingy and still held an air of… _disapproval_ and dark magic that Ginny did not enjoy very much at all.

And it made Harry so _quiet_.

She noticed it the second they crossed the threshold. Despite all Molly Weasley and Remus and Tonks and the rest of the Order had done — and they _had_ done a lot — Grimmauld Place still felt… dark and vast and achingly empty without Sirius there. And Harry noticed. And she noticed it about him immediately.

She saw it in his face, in the way his eyes grew heavy and his shoulders slumped when he passed that huge expanse of tapestry with the Black family tree on it, in the way his fingers traced picture frames, in the way he couldn’t quite look at that one room at the top of the stairs, the one that had once held the bounding form of his Godfather, or the way he refused to venture towards the attic, where once Sirius had spent his days feeding an equally stir-crazy Buckbeak.

And Harry didn’t like being cooped up any more than Sirius had liked it.

And Ginny figured she maybe liked it even less.

She wasn’t made to be indoors all day; it wasn’t how she was built. She spent the first 11 years of her life being outside as often as possible, trying to escape the heavy, stuffy, crowded house of 6 rowdy older brothers and 2 well-meaning but overbearing parents.

She learned how to fly in the fields behind the Burrow. She broke her first bones there; she shed her first heartbroken tears out by the lake where she had learnt how to swim; she had been chased, giggling the mad laughter of the young and innocent, through tall grass by Bill and Charlie — who by every sense of the word should have been too old to be playing with their 9-year-old sister, but bless them they did it anyways.

And it wasn’t quite the same for Harry or Sirius, who had spent 10 or more long years of their lives held prisoner in a situation they were ill-equipped for and entirely underserving of; and Ginny _knew_ this. She could guess how difficult it must have been, to go from captivity to freedom to captivity again, but for someone like _her_ , someone who had never had to deal with captivity and dark rooms and musty smelling furniture?

It was hell.

And something about the house set her teeth on edge. Something about the dark corners of the upstairs rooms made her bones quake. There was one room in particular where Ginny adamantly refused to go — partly because something deep in her chest desperately _wanted_ her to go in there. And she wasn’t sure exactly why, she couldn’t tell what it was about that dark room with ‘ _RAB’_ written on the door that so entranced her, that made her heartbeat quicken every time she passed it… but she realized that it was too fucked up of a notion for her to even consider — too upsetting and too worrying and too big, too important for her to want to contemplate — so she skirted the doorway whenever she was forced to walk past it.

Something about this house made her gut twist. Not all the time… not when she was surrounded by her family and by the Order. Not when she was busying herself with cleaning the rooms which seemed to refuse even the toughest cleaning spells. Not when she was reading the letters Hermione was sending her.

But at night… at night when it was just _her_ shut into a small bedroom upstairs (she slept with a candle burning even though her mother strictly forbade it) she felt _something_ … something was…

Those first few nights Ginny was jolted awake from fever-dreams of red eyes and dark, deep tunnels and high, cold laughter, and she…

She would start awake, breathing heavily with a racing pulse, and be unable to succumb to the tempting calls of slumber again until it was a good 16 hours later and she was exhausted from doing chores for her mum all day. And then it was just… wash, rinse, repeat, and by the fifth night Ginny couldn’t stand it anymore.

She leapt from her bed, her heart still hammering in her chest, and she plodded down the creaking stairs to where she knew Harry’s room was (she had to pass Sirius’ bedroom on the way there, but she knew that it was deserted — no one had had the heart or the stomach or the nerve to sleep in there since his passing. And besides, none of them would have wanted to do that to Harry).

She entered without knocking, poking her head inside, casting her gaze first on her brother, who was snoring softly in the bed closest to the door, and then to Harry, whose tousled hair and spectacle-free face combined to make him look startlingly _young_ , especially in the low light of Ginny’s wand.

She crept by Ron and poked Harry in the side.

He sat up instantly.

She held a finger to her lips to silence him before he could even open his mouth. He blinked and fumbled for his glasses, shoving them onto his nose ungracefully.

 _“What’s wrong?”_ he mouthed at her, but she just shook her head and pointed out the door.

He nodded and slipped from the bed, grabbing a jumper from the floor (it was red, and knitted with a large golden “H” and was at least half a size too small — clearly a Christmas present from a few years gone). Ginny led the way out of the room, and Harry closed the door behind him as softly as he could.

“What’s wrong?” He whispered as quietly as he could, but Ginny shook her head again, pointing up the stairs this time, and towards where her bedroom door was still propped open.

Harry nodded his agreement and followed her slowly up the dark and rickety staircase, past slumbering portraits and more than a few spider webs.

When they were inside she shut the door firmly, casting a quiet muffling charm at the door, hoping that that would be enough to keep their voices from carrying down the stairs and waking up someone they didn’t want to wake.

“Are you okay, Ginny?” Harry asked from behind her, and Ginny took a deep breath to steady herself before she turned to him. He was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

“Not really, no.” She whispered. He took a tentative step forwards, and when Ginny didn’t turn away he closed the remaining distance between them and pulled her into a loose, warm hug.

Ginny sank into it gratefully, fighting her shaking and shivering body. She didn’t even realize she was cold before, though her threadbare t-shirt and oversized sweatpants did little to stop the house’s draft from permeating her bones.

“I can’t sleep, Harry.” She finally said, biting her lip even as a few hot and angry tears fell down her cheeks, staining his sweater. “I can’t… I haven’t had the dreams in… it’s been _years_ but all of a sudden… all of a sudden I’m in this fucking house and I can’t… I can’t…” the rest of her words died in her throat. Harry only gripped her tighter.

“What dreams?” He asked quietly.

She pulled away and moved towards the bed, unwilling to meet his eyes. “About… about Tom.”

Harry sucked in a heavy breath from near the door and took a few tentative steps towards her and the bed. “What are the dreams about? Do you think… is it — is he…?”

Ginny shook her head, perching herself heavily on the edge of her bed. She put her face in her hands and spoke quietly. “I don’t know. They aren’t… I’m not _dreaming_ about him, not really, he isn’t… he isn’t speaking to me or anything it’s… just memories, I think. I never had many, from that time; a lot of it was just black, and I thought… I mean the dreams haven’t bothered me in _years_.”

“You forgot about it? The whole… the whole experience, then?”

She whipped her head up to look at him, glaring, eyes rimmed red with unshed tears. “I haven’t forgotten,” she hissed, “I remember every fucking—” she took a deep breath, “Every week there’s something that… Harry you don’t just _forget_ being possessed by the darkest wizard who ever lived.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered, and he sat next to her on the bed, reaching out to hold her hand. His were warm where hers were cool and she took a deep breath and tried to remember that she wasn’t actually angry at _him_. “I’m sorry. I’m being insensitive, it’s just… you never talk about it.”

She snorted and her eyes were burning a hole in the carpet. “People stopped listening. There’s only so long you can talk about… there’s only so much _processing_ you can do before they expect you to be all healed up. People forget trauma so easily when it hasn’t happened to them.”

“Ginny I’m _sorry_.”

“And I don’t want your goddamn _pity_ , alright?” She pulled her hand from his. “That isn’t why… that wasn’t… this isn’t a fucking _pity party_ , Harry. I’m a big girl. I’ve been dealing with this for years without anyone else, and… and I don’t need you to _apologize_ for what happened to me, because it isn’t going to change the fact that it… that he…”

“Gin…” and he was _trying_ , he really was trying not to be condescending or overly apologetic but… but how could he _not_ be sorry? How could he not be apologizing when Ginny had been… when he hadn’t known…?

“Look I’m sorry for waking you up. Go back to sleep. I’ll be fine. Merlin I don’t even know why…”

Harry pulled her into a hug, which Ginny’s rigid body fought for a good ten seconds before it (and she) acquiesced. “I’m not leaving,” he whispered, “so you’ll just have to get used to me sharing your bed.”

Ginny laughed through watery tears and sank into his hold. He slid down into the bed and threw the covers over the two of them. She scooted closer to his warmth, resting her head on his chest and throwing her arm around his waist to squeeze him tightly. She closed her eyes and hoped against all hope that having Harry next to her would stop her from dreaming about her first, terrible year at Hogwarts.

“You better watch yourself,” she muttered a few minutes later, “I’m a taken woman.”

He laughed and pressed a soft kiss to the crown of her head. “I wouldn’t dream of trying anything. Hermione is terrifying when she wants to be; no way am I crossing her.”

A warmth filled Ginny’s chest. “Good. That’s what I like to hear.”

She slipped into a mercifully dreamless sleep only minutes later, Harry’s soft and steady heartbeat playing a soothing rhythm against her ear. It was easy not to think when all she had to do was count the beats.

 _Thump thump_. _Thump thump_. _Thump thump_.

**

**Thump thump thump.**

Ginny groaned and rolled over, surprised when her hand landed on something hard and distinctly not-pillow-shaped. She cracked her eyes open, squinting against the light filtering in through her open window. Harry was in bed next to her, shifting too, pulling himself slowly from the tight grips of sleep.

**Thump thump thump.**

She sat up in bed with a jolt. Someone was knocking at her door.

She glanced down at herself, then down at Harry, and she felt a moment of pure, confusing terror ( _why_ was she so terrified?).

“Ginny?” Her father called through the wood, and she cursed under her breath.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she hissed, and she pushed at Harry’s shoulder, “Harry _wake up_.”

“Hmm?” He asked, shaking his head, pushing himself up and stretching his back, yawning hugely. He ran a hand through his hair. “What’s up, Gin?”

“Harry you have to—” But whatever she was about to say, she didn’t get the chance.

“Ginny it’s time for you to…” Her father trailed off as he stuck his head into her room, clearly shocked into silence at the sight of his youngest child, his only daughter, in bed with… “Harry what are you—?”

Ginny blushed a furious shade of crimson (but she knew she _shouldn’t_ because they _hadn’t done anything_ ) and Harry leapt from the bed, pulling his shirt down in an effort to appear more presentable and in the process only looking wildly, outlandishly guilty.

It didn’t help that he was blushing almost as red as Ginny was.

“Mr. Weasley it isn’t what it… this isn’t what it looks like.”

Mr. Weasley was now fully in the bedroom, the door flung wide open, a confused (yet still unwelcoming) glower furrowing his brows deeply. “And what _exactly_ does it look like, Harry?”

“Well it looks like…” Harry rubbed the back of his neck… “Look I _did_ sleep in here, but—”

Mr. Weasley was rapidly turning red (and a little purple).

Ginny jumped up behind him, shoving him towards the door and out past her father. “Harry get out now, while you still can.” Harry scuttled around Arthur as fast as he could, and when Mr. Weasley turned — as if to give chase — Ginny grabbed his upper arm and yanked him to a stop. “Please don’t go kill Harry. Nothing happened.”

Mr. Weasley turned back to his daughter, sputtering, “Noth-nothing happened? What exactly is the _nothing_ that was meant to have _not_ happened in here last night?” Her dad’s voice was getting louder and louder, the pitch climbing exponentially as his sentence grew longer and longer.

Ginny pushed the door shut and pulled her father farther into the room. “Please keep your voice down. Mum might hear… or worse, Ron…”

“I can guarantee you young lady, that _nothing_ would be worse than your mother… oh you just wait until I tell her…”

“No, dad _please_ don’t tell Mum.”

“Ginny I have to tell her that—”

“ _Nothing_ happened,” she implored, “please Dad, come on you have to believe me. You _know_ I’m dating Hermione.”

Mr. Weasley blinked at her, his face slowly returning to its normal colour as the fight seemed to drip and drain off of him. “Oh,” he exclaimed softly, and Ginny shuffled in her spot. “Oh yes I suppose… I suppose I hadn’t thought…”

“Yeah, so… so nothing happened with Harry, okay? I had a… I was having trouble getting to sleep and I didn’t really feel like sleeping alone.”

“But why… you could have gotten Ron…?”

“Ron and I aren’t really…” Ginny shoved a hand through her hair, trying to figure out the best way to explain… “Things between Ron and I have been tense since the whole… you know… ‘me dating his ex-girlfriend,’ thing…”

“Oh, yes well… I suppose that _would_ , ehm.” Mr. Weasley cleared his throat.

Ginny sighed. Her dad was the most awkward person she had ever met, and she herself was one of the worst people in the world for talking about feelings. The very idea sent a shudder through her body.

She had a hard enough time discussing her feelings, but her father? She was pretty sure they had never shared a deep, meaningful conversation in the sixteen years she had been alive. He just wasn’t that person. “ _Please_ don’t tell Mum.” She begged. “She would freak out over nothing and force me to sit through another one of those horrendous ‘ _talks’_ about sex and I really… I’ve gone through one talk Dad I can’t do another. I really, _really_ can’t.”

He sighed and looked down. “I won’t… I won’t tell your mother.”

Ginny exhaled in relief and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she said, “thank you so much.”

“I won’t tell your mother on one condition.” She groaned and took a step back. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. “I just want… I just want to make sure that you are—” he was flushing deep crimson, his ears red enough to match Ron’s on his worst days, “are you and Hermione being _safe_?”

Ginny pulled a face. “ _Dad_!” She exclaimed, her own ears and cheeks and neck burning.

“Ginny it is my job to make sure that—”

“ _Yes_ we’re being safe!”

Her father looked almost shell-shocked. “Oh. Oh so you are… so you have been… you two have had…?”

Ginny groaned. Why had she said that? Why hadn’t she just said, _‘Oh don’t worry Dad, Hermione and I aren’t having sex. Strictly non-sexual relationship between us. Practically nuns, we are’_? Why hadn’t she just…

“Dad it’s really… it is really none of your business whether or not we _have_ had… you know.” She couldn’t say the word ‘sex’. Here she was, in front of her father, like a fucking _child_ , unable to even say the word ‘sex.’ But also… _why wasn’t she just telling him the truth?_

“Well I would like to think that it _is_ my—”

“No it really, _really_ isn’t.”

A beat; a pause where he considered her and he considered her words. Finally, Arthur raised his hands in surrender. “You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s your life and your relationship and I shouldn’t have meddled.”

Ginny could once again breathe. “Can we please never talk about this again?”

“I would like that very much.”

She managed a strained smile at her father. “I’m sorry but I really don’t… I’m not used to talking about…”

“Well neither am _I_ , Ginny. This is the first… well…”

“I’m not the first Weasley to get a girlfriend, Dad. You must’ve had a million of these conversations. Or… well at least five, because the day Percy comes home with a girl—”

“But they were _boys_ , you know,” her father interrupted, “and I know boys.” He pulled his robes down as if to make himself more presentable. “I myself was a boy once —”

“You don’t say,” she said, voice dripping sarcasm, but her father plowed on:

“And I’ve _raised_ six boys, Ginny, all of whom have — at least so far — proven to be only interested in women. I know how boys and girls operate together. And, well… six boys and no grandchildren yet… I’d like to think I’ve done a decent job raising them.”

Ginny smiled. “You _have_ , Dad.”

He fiddled with the clasp to his robes. “Yes, well… well you’re the only girl. And your mother… well she _tries_ , Ginny, but you’ve never exactly been… you haven’t exactly proven to be…” he trailed off and Ginny’s stomach clenched. She knew where this was going. She’d tortured herself over this very line of thinking for _years_.

“I know I’m not the daughter Mum was hoping for,” she said quietly, eyes firmly trained on her bare feet, “I know that she wanted a girl-ier girl, someone to… to cook with and shop with and—”

Her father grabbed her by the arms, forcing her to look up and meet his eyes. “Don’t you _ever_ say that,” he whispered fiercely, “don’t ever _think_ that. Your mother wanted a healthy, smart, beautiful daughter and that is _exactly_ what she got. And… and whether or not you like wearing pink, or… or whether you play Quidditch or knit scarves and whether you date boys or you date girls… you are _exactly_ the daughter your mother wanted. And don’t you ever forget that.”

It was only when he reached up to brush the tears away from her cheeks that Ginny realized she was crying. It was only when he said so that Ginny realized she had been waiting for those words for her entire life.

“Oh Ginny,” he whispered, and dragged her into another bone-crushing hug. “Oh Ginny, darling… how long have you…?”

“Well you never really sa- _said_ …” her voice caught on the word, “I mean… Merlin dad when you found out you didn’t… you didn’t even _say_ anything. I mean you could have at least _reacted_ when you fou-found out that I liked… that I was dating…”

“We thought that… we thought that if we made a big deal out of it it would make you uncomfortable. Ginny I’m _so_ sorry… If I had known…”

She burrowed her head deeper into his robes — which, admittedly made breathing much more difficult and her words much more muffled — “I just thought you would say something more than… ‘ _Oh Ginny dear we were delighted, do bring her ‘round for Christmas.’_ ”

He kissed the crown of her head. “I’m sorry we didn’t say more. Of course we love you. We love you and we love Hermione and all we want… all we’ve _ever_ wanted is for you to be happy. That’s it. And if she makes you happy… if girls make you happier than boys then let me tell you, I _would_ be delighted to never have to bring a son-in-law into the family. You can’t know what a relief it is to not have to worry about chasing boys away from your daughter.”

Ginny pulled away, laughing, and smacked him. “I should hope you wouldn’t have done that even if I _was_ dating a boy.”

“Well now look, I _know_ you can take care of yourself — you’ve been doing it for years against your brothers — but it’s a father’s _job_ to scare off the boyfriends.” He looked at her, eyes heavy with some emotion Ginny couldn’t decipher, “No one is supposed to be good enough for my girl.”

Ginny had to smile. “You can think that about girls, too.”

He shook his head adamantly. “Oh no, girls are much too confusing. I’ve never really understood girls.”

Ginny felt a surging emotion and had to hug him again. “Thank you,” she muttered into his shoulder.

“What for?”

“I don’t know. Just… just thank you.”

He hugged her back. “Thank you too.”

And it was probably the most she had ever spoken to her father, all at once. Fighting for parental attention through six older brothers, even if she was the only girl and even if she was ‘babied’ like Ron claimed, was not an easy task, what with accidental spells and explosions and injuries and gifted wizards and finding jobs and owls sent home and, ever since she’d started Hogwarts, crisis after crisis after life-threatening catastrophe year after year. Being the youngest of 7 wasn’t exactly a prime position to be in if you felt like sharing your personal life with your parents.

Ginny had grown up without that, without the connection someone like Hermione had with their parents — the only child of two doting and loving people. And Molly and Arthur Weasley doted more than just about anyone, and they were of course the _loveliest_ of lovely people, but… but Ginny wouldn’t lie and say that they had a _close_ relationship, that _any_ of them had a close relationship with their parents — except for maybe Bill, who had graduated from son to peer and colleague practically before Ginny could think for herself.

She was fairly certain she had never spoken so openly with her father.

 _Fuck_ did it feel good to finally be able to talk to him.

**

“Is your dad about to kill me?” Harry whispered once she joined him in the kitchen, showered and changed and hair piled haphazardly atop her head. “Because he keeps looking at me and I am very uncomfortable.”

Ginny reached up and mussed up his already messy hair. “Nothing to fear, Boy Who Lived. You will live another day.”

Harry visibly relaxed next to her and shot her a grateful smile. “So do I need to… defend your virtue to him, or something? Because nothing happened and he has to know—”

“He _does_ know, Harry. Don’t worry.” Harry smiled and turned back to his food. Ginny fought a smirk and said, with as even a voice as she could muster, “Who you really have to look out for is Fred and George. I mean, if my older brothers found out…”

Harry choked on his porridge. Tonks, who was sitting next to him, clapped him soundly on the back while Harry coughed and tried to breathe. Ginny was practically cackling.

“Hey now go easy on the poor boy, Gin,” George said from a few seats down. “It’s in poor taste to laugh while a man dies in front of you. Ain’t that right, Harry?”

Harry nodded but still couldn’t form words. He gulped down some pumpkin juice and wiped at his watering eyes.

“And where is Ron now?” Mrs. Weasley asked as she bustled in from the kitchen. Ginny looked around in surprise; she hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t here.

“Oh yes I _thought_ the whole room felt just a touch too cheery,” Fred said, nodding around at his brothers. “Ronnie still sleeping, Harry?”

“Oh, um…” Harry cleared his throat and made quick eye contact with Ginny, “Yeah I… I suppose so.”

Bill, Charlie, and Fleur were engaged in a deep discussion at one end of the table with Mr. Weasley, whose arms were waving excitedly around his head. Remus and Tonks sat across from each other, Remus on Ginny’s right and Tonks to Harry’s left. Fred was on Ginny’s left, piling his spoon high with eggs, and George sat one seat away from Harry, leaving an open spot for, presumably, Ron, whenever he decided to join them.

“Mum sit down and eat!” Bill called towards the kitchen, where Mrs. Weasley was still muttering and clanging around. “Let Kreacher get the rest of the food; you sit down.”

“Oh all right,” she sighed and looked out towards the entranceway of the small home, “I should just go and make sure Ron is—”

“Don’t worry about it mum, George and I’ve got him, don’t we Georgie?” Fred said with a wink as he stood from the table.

“Right you are, Fred. One Ronald wake-up call, coming right up.”

“Thank you so much, boys,” she said with a sincere smile, tucking herself into her place and finally serving herself.

“Are we expecting anyone else, Remus?” Harry asked, finally in full control of his voice. “Madeye or Mundungus or…?”

Remus shook his head. “No this is it. Tonks and I were the only misfits left without a plan for the holidays.”

Harry leaned across the table and lowered his voice. Ginny wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be listening or not, so she pretended to busy herself with coffee and bacon, keeping one ear trained on their conversation. “And Percy?” Harry asked quietly, and rage boiled up in Ginny’s chest.

Percy. The prat. Hadn’t even sent their mum a letter. She had invited him to Christmas but Percy hadn’t responded. You’d think, even with his head so far up the minister’s arse, he could at _least_ have written to say, “ _Sorry Mum, but I’m a git. Won’t be home for Christmas. All my love!_ ”

Remus smiled sadly and glanced at her mother, as if to make sure she wasn’t listening (she wasn’t), before saying, “We haven’t heard anything. I don’t think he’ll be coming though.”

Harry sighed and glanced across at Ginny, who made brief eye contact with him.

“We probably shouldn’t talk about Percy around Mum,” she said to him, and he nodded, and dropped the conversation.

There was a loud _CRACK_ in the kitchen and everyone jumped, most pulling out their wands.

“Fred! George!” Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, pressing a hand to her chest to slow her racing heart. “What were you _thinking_?”

Fred and George stood in the doorway grinning, arms around Ron who looked very much like he had not woken up prior to disapparating; he was even still in his sleepwear.

“We got Ron for you, Mum!” George defended.

“Sleeping the day away, this one was,” Fred added, shoving Ron into the empty chair next to Harry. They moved back to their own chairs. “You’re very welcome, by the way.”

Bill and Charlie were laughing at the other end of the table, while Fleur muttered under her breath in rapid French and mopped up spilled juice and coffee. Ginny heard a low, “‘ow ‘orrible,” and she fought the urge to high five her brothers.

Ron slumped in his chair and glared at his empty plate. He didn’t say anything.

Fred and George exchanged a look and sighed loudly and in unison. They both looked determined to not let Ron’s sour mood affect their breakfast.

Fred clapped Ginny on the back and she dropped her fork. “So when’s your girl coming, Gin?” That got Ron to look up. “Christmas is right around the corner you know…”

“Yeah… no she’s with her family. She’ll get here the twenty-ninth and stay through New Year’s until we go back to school.”

George smiled. “Excellent, marvelous, can’t wait to meet her.”

Ginny frowned. “You’ve already met her. You’ve known her for years.”

“Yes but that was when she was Hermione Granger, friend of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley,” Fred said with a twinkle in his eye.

“Now she’s Hermione Granger, _girlfriend_ of Ginny Weasley,” George continued.

“They’re right, Gin!” Charlie called from down the table, “It’s a whole different game now.”

She laughed. “But that doesn’t make any sense!”

“Sure it does!” Came Bill’s voice, next. “We need to know if she’s good enough for you!”

“Shouldn’t you already know if—?”

“Can we not talk about this, maybe?” Ron snapped and the room fell silent. Ginny looked at him steadily.

Charlie cleared his throat.

George broke the uncomfortable quiet. “C’mon Ron, we were just having a little fun. Not every day you get to tease your sister about her new girlfriend.”

Ron glared and stood swiftly from the table, his chair crashing to the floor so loudly it woke the portrait of Mrs. Black by the door.

He stalked out of the room and past the shrieking painting ( _“Filthy half-breeds and blood traitors in my house! Werewolves and abominations and—”_ )

“I’ve got it, Molly.” Remus said, hurrying out of the room to wrestle with the curtains around the horrendous painting.

Fred was snickering, but aside from him everyone else felt (and looked) extremely uncomfortable.

Their mum glared. “Why do you have to rile him up?” She scolded, her eyes burning intense fire at her sons and daughter.

“Oh come on, Mum, he was being totally—”

“I don’t want to hear another word about this, do you hear me? Not another word. Your brother has been through enough.”

Ginny frowned and recoiled as her mother swept from the room, hurrying after Ron up the staircase.

Mrs. Black stopped yelling but no one else spoke.

Fred rested his hand on Ginny’s shoulder in a quiet act of solidarity. “Sorry about that, Ginny,” he said quietly. “Mum is just…” but he didn’t have the words to explain, and Ginny didn’t know if he could have explained it to her anyways, even if he had the words to do so.

What did she mean, ‘ _Your brother has been through enough’_? What had _Ron_ been through that made the topic of Ginny and Hermione’s relationship taboo? Why weren’t they… what was the point of…

“Yeah, it’s our fault Gin,” George supplied from across the table. “We were trying to wind Ron up. I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of it.”

“Oh no, that-that’s alright.” She chewed at her bottom lip. “Sorry, I think I’ll just… yeah I’m not really…” She stood from the table and left the room, worrying her lip between her teeth and wishing desperately for her broom, for the calm and warm quiet of the Burrow, for an open sky and a clear pond and a breath of air that didn’t reek of dust and mold.

**

Ron seemed determined to never be in the same room as Ginny again. She didn’t notice it at first, but it quickly became apparent that whatever her mother had said to him that morning hadn’t done its job. Ron was steadfastly avoiding her. Except for meals which they all ate together, Ron might as well have been living in a different house.

She probably should have been more bothered by it than she was.

 _I didn’t know,_ she wrote in one of her letters to Hermione, _how strange it would be to go an entire term without speaking to Ron. He can’t even get over his attitude for Christmas. It’s driving Mum absolutely mental._

Hermione’s response took a long time to get back to her (too long, though Ginny tried not to dwell on that fact while she paced her bedroom late into the night, Harry grumbling from the bed for her to sit down or she would wear a hole in the floor. He hadn’t slept in her room again, after that first night, but he did spend much of his free time with her, shut up in a room upstairs, away from Ron and his foul attitude and the rest of the family and their unhelpful happiness).

When Hedwig finally returned — tapping against her window in the cold early morning light — with a scroll tied to her leg filled with Hermione’s neat, close writing, Ginny felt a strange surge of relief.

It read as follows:

 

_Gin,_

_I can’t imagine how hard it must be, not being able to speak to your brother. I haven’t talked to Ron since… well since the summer, probably. I know it’s not the same but I miss him, too._

_Maybe we should stop? If this, if our ‘dating’ is hurting you and your family, maybe we shouldn’t do it anymore._

_Let me know what you think. I don’t want this to be harder on you than it has to be. We started all of this for me, but if you’re a casualty in this infuriating war Ron and I seem to be waging with each other than I refuse to fight anymore._

_You don’t have to respond— in fact, it would be better if you didn’t. I’ll be there in four days (Happy Christmas, by the way) so it would be easiest if we save Hedwig another trip. Take these four days and mull it over, and we can talk when I get there. It’s been almost four months of this anyways; we should be thinking about when to call it quits officially._

_I’ll see you soon._

_All my love,_

_Hermione_

Ginny sat heavily on her bed, hands shaking as she struggled to read the writing by candlelight. Something clenched deep in her chest. She took a shaky breath in. It was too early for the rest of the house to be awake — the sun hadn’t even peaked its head above the horizon yet. She had woken to the sounds of Hedwig’s beak lightly tapping against the glass of her window.

She wished she had slept in.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” she whispered to herself, letting the letter fall from her hands, “I can’t… I can’t.” She stared at the ground. “Merlin Hermione, why today?”

She sat there for a very long time, and probably would have continued to sit there for much longer, when a knock at her door broke her reverie. Ginny stood as if in a daze and slowly made her way over.

Harry was on the other side. He smiled. “Hey, your mum wanted me to come get you. She said it’s time for presents.”

“What time is it?” She looked towards the window. Soft, early-morning light was filtering through, casting long shadows onto the floor of her bedroom.

“Almost eight-thirty.” Harry said, reaching out and grasping her by the arm, dragging her out of the room and down the stairs. “C’mon, someone’s made tea. You’ll be awake in no time.”

She followed behind him, her mind far, far away.

~~

Christmas was her favorite holiday, historically. Usually her parents had to drag her away from the tree and force her into something more presentable for dinner, otherwise she would be planted in front of the fire in her pajamas until the New Year.

But today…

Today she hadn’t felt like doing much. She opened her presents, exchanged hugs with her family and Harry and Remus and Tonks (and even Fleur, who she found less and less bothersome the more time she spent with her), and then, once the last present had been opened and the last plate cleared from the breakfast table, she had slunk back to her room and away from the crackling fire and soft music and happy laughter of the others. Even Harry couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear, his gloom and sadness at missing Sirius replaced by the magic of Christmas.

But today…

Today Ginny couldn’t join them. She had disappeared into her room as soon as was socially acceptable. Because… because Hermione had…

Because in four days she may not have a girlfriend any longer, even if that girlfriend wasn’t her _actual_ girlfriend. Because she thought she might be falling in love with Hermione. Because even being Hermione’s _fake_ girlfriend had been so much more than... Because Ron was still being a dick and because her mum was being weird and avoiding conversation with her and because she _missed_ Hermione and she didn’t _want_ to break up, she didn’t want to give up the soft conversation, the quiet warmth of happy physical handholding, the soft kisses traded when other people were around…

Tonks knocked on her open door, a sympathetic smile painting her features. “You’ve been awful quiet today, Gin.” Ginny shrugged noncommittally. “Why is that? It’s Christmas; you should be happy.”

Ginny chewed on her lip, deep in thought. On the one hand, she definitely _couldn’t_ tell Tonks what was going on… right? Tonks was a member of the Order, she was friends with her parents, she couldn’t… she wouldn’t understand.

But, on the other hand… on the other hand Tonks was young, and Ginny had always considered them friends. And Tonks was kind to her, and Tonks had a better understanding than probably anyone else about what it was like to love someone you weren’t supposed to love. So, maybe…

“D’you mind if I come in?” Ginny shook her head and Tonks made her way further into the room. Her hair wasn’t its usual bubblegum pink, instead settling for a happy medley of green and red ( _“For Christmas,”_ she had said that morning). She crouched down, kneeling on the floor in front of Ginny’s bed. She picked up the piece of parchment that still laid there and, to her credit, only glanced at it once before slipping it back into Ginny’s hands.

“Is that what this is all about?” She asked quietly. “Is… did something happen with Hermione?”

Ginny bit her lip hard enough to taste blood and pretended that the tears in her eyes were all because of that and not—

“I don’t know.” She whispered, and she knew it wasn’t enough information, knew that it wouldn’t explain everything — or even _anything_ — but Tonks still slid a comforting hand onto Ginny’s knee and squeezed. She sat there, hand warm and reassuring, and waited for Ginny to say something else.

She didn’t have to wait long.

The truth tumbled from Ginny’s lips with surprisingly little fanfare. “We aren’t dating,” she said in a rush, and Tonks squeezed her leg once more.

“You broke up?” Tonks asked quietly, and Ginny shook her head, salty tears gathering on the tip of her nose and falling, _plink plink plink_ , down to her lap.

“No we–we aren’t dating… we’ve never _been_ dating. It was all… we’ve been pretending.”

To her credit, it only took Tonks a few moments to gather herself. “Why have you been pretending?”

“It was so stupid, at the beginning. I mean I–I didn’t really do it on purpose I just…” She floundered for a few moments before, in a breathless sort of word-vomit, the story came spewing from her chest, burning at the back of her throat on the way out. “Ron was there and he was with Lavender and it was _so soon_ after he and Hermione had broken up and he was being just… just the absolute _worst_ about it and everyone was talking about her and muttering about their relationship and I got fed up. I kissed her; didn’t even ask if she was okay with it, either, I just… just leapt across the table and kissed her. And well… well everyone sort of assumed that we were dating and we just–just went along with it because _why not_ , you know? And Merlin, you should have seen Ron’s face, I thought he was going to _explode_ when he saw…” Ginny trailed off.

Tonks cleared her throat. “Why are you telling me this, Gin? Why are you… what’s gotten you so upset about it all?”

Ginny looked up, red-rimmed eyes meeting Tonks’ kind brown ones with a sort of desperation, a need to be heard and understood and sympathized with. “It just started out as a way to fuck with Ron, to mess with his head, to pay him back for being such an _absolute git_ about the whole thing but…” She looked helpless, “Tonks I think I’m in love with her.”

Tonks whistled, long and low and slow. “That’s pretty big news there, fireball.”

Ginny nodded and wiped at her eyes. “I know. I know I didn’t... it wasn’t planned and I didn’t mean to but…” She scrambled for the parchment and shoved it in Tonks’ general direction. “She wants to talk about us breaking up. I don’t want to break up with her Tonks, I _don’t_ , because… look I know that what we’re doing is fake and what we have isn’t real but at least I can _pretend_ that it is and… and to go from being practically dating her to being her _ex_ I just…”

Tonks read the paper, her eyes skimming very quickly, and when she looked back up to meet Ginny’s gaze there was something in her expression which Ginny could not quite comprehend. “I think you need to talk to her, Gin.” Ginny shook her head violently. “No, don’t do that. I’m _serious_ ; you have to tell her. You have to tell her what you’re feeling, Gin, it’s… it’s important, okay? And it isn’t fair to Hermione to keep harboring these feelings for her and never telling her why or what or how you’re feeling. You get that, don’t you?”

“Why do I have to tell her?” Ginny’s voice squeaked, “Why do I have to… what if she doesn’t feel the same way?”

“Then you’ll talk about it and you’ll understand each other and you’ll move on — like adults — from a very difficult situation. But you _have_ to tell her.”

Ginny cried harder and Tonks embraced her securely. “I’m so scared,” she whispered, “I’m so… I’m so scared.”

“I know honey; I know.”

They stayed like that for a very long time, until Ginny’s wracking sobs had stopped and Tonks’ knees had long since gone numb against the cold hardwood floor.

**


	4. Chapter 4

**

Mr. Weasley picked Hermione up from the train station on the morning of the twenty-ninth. He had agreed (though ‘insisted’ was probably a better word in this instance) to get her and escort her to Grimmauld Place so that she didn’t have to make the trip alone. (As a general rule, the Order didn’t really want any of them traveling to or from the safe house alone.)

Ginny thought about going with him, so that Hermione wouldn’t have to face any awkward conversations with her dad by herself, but Fred and George had teased her pretty mercilessly when she brought it up, so in the end she decided to wait at Grimmauld Place for Hermione to get there (like a normal and totally not clingy or desperate friend/fake-girlfriend).

Still, despite her best efforts to appear calm and unfazed (lest Fred and George catch wind and decide to take the mickey), she found that the knowledge of Hermione’s impending arrival was making her antsy. She was trying, but it wasn’t working.

Her leg bounced as she tried to focus on the chess game in front of her. Harry kept glancing from the board to her face to her leg. “You okay, Gin?” He asked.

She looked up at him, eyes blurry, her thumb held tightly between her teeth. “Huh?”

“You okay? You seem…” he paused as he eyed her strangely, “anxious.”

She shook her head, refocusing on the board in front of her as she tried to figure out her turn. “I’m fine,” she said breezily, in a manner that was almost convincing but not quite. Her leg didn’t stop bouncing and Harry still looked skeptical.

“You sure?”

She looked up at him again, and then glanced out into the hallway, to where the front door was. She stopped for a moment, wondering if she should share with him, wondering if he would understand. “I just…” She took a breath and clenched her wand tightly in her hand (a subconscious move that she didn’t have the energy to fight). “I just thought they would be back by now,” she finally confessed.

Harry smiled at her, then, and Ginny tried her hardest not to interpret it as condescending. Harry wasn’t Ron; not everything he did was targeted and designed to make her uncomfortable. “You worried about Hermione?” He asked with a teasing lilt to his voice.

She huffed and flushed. “No,” she muttered.

Harry laughed at her. “Yes you are.”

She ordered one of her pieces to move, and watched with somewhat-petty glee as her bishop decimated one of his knights. “No I’m not.”

Harry frowned. “Well there’s no need to take it out on the poor knight, Gin. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It’s wizard’s chest, Harry. Kill or be killed.”

He opened his mouth to retort at her, but he never got the chance. Just then the doorknob turned, and Ginny was up and out of her chair so fast that she almost sent the chessboard sprawling.

She heard Harry sigh behind her, and she knew he was silently lamenting the fact that they probably weren’t going to get back to their game. (Honestly though, he should be _relieved,_ because Ginny was a right good player, and definitely better than he had anticipated. She wasn’t as good as Ron but she was definitely better than him, and it would probably save his pride a little if they just quit now, while she was ahead but not wiping the floor with him just yet.)

As soon as she flew around the corner to the entrance way, all thoughts of Harry left her mind.

Hermione stood in the open door, just in front of Mr. Weasley. Her hair was a little wild, her cheeks a little wind-kissed, with her scarf wrapped tight around her neck.

Merlin was she ever beautiful. It had only been two weeks but Ginny already felt like she hadn’t seen Hermione in months. (The feeling was a touch scary, a touch too real for Ginny’s liking, so she shoved it down with a vow never to think of it again.)

Hermione smiled, and it pulled Ginny from her reverie. She rushed forwards and pulled Hermione into her arms, picking her up and twirling her around a few times just because she felt like it, just because she could, just because Hermione was _here_ (finally here) and she was safe and her coat was cold from the air outside but her cheeks were warm and she was _here_ and Ginny was so, _so_ happy to see her.

Hermione dropped her bag with a resounding _thunk_ as she was hoisted into the air. Her free hand went to the back of Ginny’s head and she giggled as her fingers lightly ran through red hair, and Ginny grinned wider than she had weeks.

“Hullo, Ginny,” Hermione laughed as Ginny placed her on her feet again.

Ginny — seeming to realize all at once that not only she had just done something a little embarrassing but that she also had an audience — blushed and simply said, “Hi” back.

Hermione laughed again and leaned up onto her toes, kissing Ginny once, softly, on the lips. When she pulled away Ginny was blushing even harder than before. She glanced over Hermione’s shoulder to where her father stood, but Arthur was making a pointed show of bringing Hermione’s bags in (and pretending not to have seen anything).

Ginny was grateful for him.

Hermione must have caught Harry’s eye, then, for she ducked around Ginny’s body and raced to him. Harry, smiling widely, engulfed her in a hug.

“Lovely to see you, Hermione,” he said, arms firm around her waist.

She pulled back and reached up to ruffle his hair. “Harry. You look the same.”

He smiled. “It’s only been a week and a half.”

“Well with the rate you’ve been growing recently I wouldn’t have been surprised,” she teased.

Ginny slid up and wrapped her arms tightly around Hermione’s waist from behind. Her nose nuzzled into the side of Hermione’s neck. Hermione laughed and turned her head into the touch.

“I missed you,” Ginny said, quietly (almost too quietly for Harry to hear but not quite).

Hermione flushed and craned her neck. “I missed you too,” she said back, just as softly.

It was an odd moment, but one Ginny wasn’t in any hurry to leave. It was one of those moments where Ginny wasn’t entirely sure who she was, nor who Hermione was. She wasn’t sure if she was Ginny: Hermione Granger’s friend, or Ginny: Hermione Granger’s fake-girlfriend at the moment. Both Ginnys certainly missed Hermione; both were fond of physical contact and extended hugs; both were likely to blush at the attention currently being afforded the pair. (But Hermione Granger’s friend shouldn’t want to kiss her, shouldn’t nuzzle into her neck, shouldn’t whisper in her ear and shouldn’t feel her heart race and shouldn’t want want want want.)

Harry cleared his throat from in front of them, and when Ginny’s gaze met his face she saw that he was _blushing_. Ginny cleared her throat and stepped away from Hermione (and forced those treacherous thoughts of wanting and craving down into the dark recesses of her mind and tried to ignore them for good).

~~

 The lot of them still crowded the entranceway, but Mr. Weasley had long since skirted around them and made his way into the house (presumably to find his wife).

Harry half-thought that perhaps someone else would have appeared somewhere — the door of the kitchen or the top of the stairs — in order to greet Hermione, but the entire house was eerily quiet. He figured Ron wouldn’t want anything to do with the welcome gathering taking place in the foyer; Mrs. Weasley was probably busy in the kitchen; and who knows where Fred and George have got off to?

Seems like the three of them would be each other’s only company until at least dinner.

(It was a little strange, in Harry’s opinion. It made some sort of sense, when he thought it all out — Ron was Ron and the rest of the Weasley family was likely busy — but it was still… well surely at least Mrs. Weasley would have wanted to give Hermione a hug? That was the sort of thing she liked to do, after all. It was a little strange that she wouldn’t even pop out to say hello.)

Hermione clapped her hands and asked in a bright voice, “So what have you lot been doing while I’ve been away?”

Harry and Ginny groaned simultaneously. “Nothing,” Harry said, while Ginny said back, angrier, “Cleaning.”

Hermione chuckled. “Still cleaning?”

“I swear this place is cursed to grow dust.”

“You can’t _grow_ dust, Ginny.”

“I know Hermione I was being metaphoric.”

Hermione blinked, clearly surprised. “How do _you_ know about metaphoric language? They don’t teach writing styles at Hogwarts.”

Ginny tipped her chin up, equal parts haughty and proud. “I _read_ ,” she said very pointedly.

Hermione regarded Ginny with the strangest look. (Ginny, for her part, had her nose turned to the sky in a display of mock-snobbishness, so Harry was quite certain she missed the expression, but _he_ could see it clear as day.) it dawned on Harry then that he had never really seen Hermione look _smitten_ , so he didn’t at first recognize it on her features.

“I suppose you do,” she said softly. Ginny blinked a few times in response, her posture melting and her eyes locking with Hermione’s as they exchanged a look that was equal parts heavy and confusing and promising.

Harry cleared his throat, because it seemed like they had very quickly forgotten about him (again). “Need help with your bags, Hermione?” He asked as a way of breaking the tension.

She turned to him and the moment was broken. She smiled. “Yes that would be lovely, thank you Harry.”

He glanced between the pair of them. “To Ginny’s room?” He asked, keeping the question purposefully light.

They looked to each other and exchanged what was clearly a significant gaze (though Harry could not tell what was significant about it). Ginny nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, there isn’t… there isn’t much room elsewhere. So we better put her in with me.”

Harry nodded and grabbed one of Hermione’s bags while Ginny took the other, leading the way up the staircase.

He hadn’t wanted to assume anything about their sleeping arrangements. Of course he… he gathered that they might want to, that they had likely slept together before. Not _slept together_ slept together, at least… probably not. He didn’t think that they acted like a couple who—not that he spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not Hermione and Ginny had—not that he _ever_ thought about whether or not Hermione and Ginny… He blushed at the thought and shook his head. _Don’t even go there, Harry,_ he thought to himself. _Better for everyone if we just pretend._

Either way, he had guessed that they would be sharing a room. After all, they _always_ shared whenever Hermione stayed at the Burrow. Fred and George had even been ordered just the day before to bring the spare cot up to the room Ginny was inhabiting.

So he supposed that everyone else gathered they would be sharing a room, too. But he still hadn’t wanted to assume. Better to ask than to make a fool of himself.

When Harry got into Ginny’s room he made as if to put Hermione’s bag on the empty cot perched by the door, but before he could take more than a few steps Hermione said from behind him, “Oh that’s… that’s alright Harry. You can just put it on the floor.”

He turned to her. She had coloured slightly, and was perched on the end of the bed in the center of the room. Ginny leaned against the open doorframe, watching Hermione closely.

He nodded and tried not to blush.

 _It makes sense that they would want to sleep in the same bed_ , he told himself. _Don’t make it weird_.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll um… you can have a minute to…” his attempts to stop his flaming cheeks failed as he felt a flush rise up in his neck. “Bollocks,” he cursed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’ll see you lot at dinner, then.”

He slid from the room and took in a few breaths.

God but he was awkward.

He marched down the steps, trying to make enough noise so as to alert the girls to the fact that he was leaving (and could no longer see or hear them), but not enough noise to wake up the portrait of Mrs. Black which hung, looming and angry, by the entrance way.

He succeeded in both.

~~

“You certainly made him uncomfortable,” Ginny said, still leaning against the door frame.

Hermione picked at the bedspread with two fingers and simply shrugged. “Yes well… have to keep up impressions, don’t we? I mean…” her eyes met Ginny’s, “they do think we’re dating, after all. They’ll expect us to want to share a bed.”

Ginny quirked a brow. “Do you want to share a bed?”

Hermione shrugged. “I’m certainly fine with it. You?”

Ginny bit her lip. “Well… that cot doesn’t look very comfortable. And being the kind and considerate fake girlfriend that I am, I would _of course_ have to insist that you take the bed, which would leave _me_ with the terrible cot.”

“And we can’t have that now can we?” Hermione teased.

Ginny smirked and chuckled. “No we can’t.”

“Then it’s decided. We’ll share.”

A brief moment of silence where both girls smiled to themselves (though neither noticed it about the other), before Ginny cut into the silence. “I still think you didn’t have to give Harry heart failure.” She shot Hermione a look. “You could have _at least_ let him put your bag on the cot.”

Hermione darkened (she was getting flustered a lot, recently, which was only adding to Ginny’s confusion because Hermione was the most level-headed and no-nonsense person Ginny had ever met; she didn’t _get_ flustered). “Well… perhaps, but it wouldn’t have been as fun.”

Ginny chuckled and moved further into the room. “Need help unpacking your things, then? Or are you plotting some way to embarrass _me_ in the near future as well?”

Hermione shook her head. “You’re too easy to embarrass; you blush at everything. Wouldn’t be any fun, would it?”

**

Harry had disappeared downstairs (who knew where Ron had got to); Bill and her father had had to run off to the Ministry (Christmas was always a busy time for cursed objects, and an especially busy time for those cursed objects to attack Muggles); and Fleur and her mum were in the kitchen working on dinner (and trying not to fight — which Ginny found admirable of them, if a little useless). Tonks and Lupin were probably with Tonks’ family (though they would be back later that weekend for the New Year’s celebration), and Fred and George were, presumably, running their business with great success (it seemed like every sale they made had the unfortunate side-effect of making their mum more and more disgruntled).

Ginny and Hermione were completely alone in their shared bedroom, reclining on the worn bedspread that scratched a little at the exposed skin of Ginny’s lower back where her shirt had ridden up from her trousers. Hermione sat at one end of the bed with Ginny’s feet in her lap while Ginny spread out over the remaining area. She was on her back, flipping lazily through a book held above her head that did little to garner her interest (she wasn’t even entirely sure where she had found it… maybe Harry’s room?) when Hermione spoke suddenly, breaking their relaxed and comfortable silence.

“So… have you thought about it?” Ginny looked up from her book, frowning in confusion. “Us breaking up, I mean,” Hermione clarified.

Ginny sat up a little straighter, retracting her feet from their perch and shifting so she was now sitting on them. She closed the book, if only to buy herself more time, and as she reached out to place it on the beside table next to her she said in a low murmur, “Yeah I’ve… I’ve thought about it.”

She didn’t offer anything else and Hermione, impatient to continue the conversation, said, after a long pause, “...And?”

“And, well… is that what _you_ want?”

Hermione shook her head. “We’re talking about you here Ginny, not me.”

“I know that but… but we started all of this for you, you know, because Ron… because of you and Ron and I know that it was just to like… get you in a better place and make him see what he’s missing out on…”

“Ginny I thought I told you that I didn’t _care_ about—”

“I don’t want to break up.” Hermione blinked at her in clear surprise and Ginny bit her lip and hurried on, “Or, well… I don’t want to ‘ _break up_ ’,” she used her fingers to put quotes around the words. “I don’t, Hermione, I really, really don’t. There’s no one I’m especially trying to date right now and… honestly, I don’t know… pretending to be with you has been… well it’s been really nice.”

Hermione smiled but still looked unsure. “Has it really? But… what about Ron?”

“Oh well Ron can go and fuck right off, can’t he?” She shook her head and moved up the bed so that they were sitting side-by-side, backs to the headboard, not looking at each other. “Honestly, I…” she swallowed. “This has been good for me, I think. All my brothers are on my side of this battle, for once. Well… except Ron and Percy, but they’re both being terrible recently so who cares about them anyways.” She took a breath. “I’ve actually become _friends_ with Harry, and who would’ve thought that _that_ could happen after that stupid crush I had when I was ten?” Hermione laughed at that. Ginny smiled and continued, “And I’ve never played better Quidditch in my life and who am I to break a lucky streak, and… and Slughorn thinks I’ve got quite a bit in common with Gwenog Jones, and… well if at the end of the day all I’m doing is pissing off Ron with you and giving you an excuse not to date Cormac McLaggen, I’ll take it.”

Hermione took Ginny’s hands in hers. “Are you sure? You _really_ don’t mind if we keep this up? Because one word from you and it’s off, just like that.”

Ginny shook her head, her heart racing (she tried to ignore it, tried not to think about what it meant, tried not to think about the implications or how selfish she was being or how wrong it was of her to use Hermione like this). “I really don’t mind. Honestly I’m fine to… to keep this up indefinitely.” Hermione pulled a face and Ginny hastened to add, “I mean until one of us finds someone to actually date, rather.”

“Ginny… indefinitely is a long time to be in a fake relationship.”

“Well I know that but… but whatever, it doesn’t really matter to me. Everyone else is sort of bloody terrible, Hermione, and I really like you,” she flushed, and muttered a little quieter, “I mean you’re my best friend. This really hasn’t exactly been _difficult_ for me to do.”

“Still I – I feel like I’m taking advantage.”

“You _aren’t_ taking—”

“No because, well… you say you’re fine doing this until one of us finds someone else to date but Gin… how will anyone be able to let you know they want to date you if you’ve got a long-term partner?”

“Cormac makes it apparent enough.”

Hermione shook her head, small smile playing at her lips. “Cormac doesn’t want to _date_ me; he wants to shag me.” Ginny bristled at that, but Hermione went on, ignoring her, “And also that is a poor example because he is vile and I want nothing to do with him.”

Ginny was quiet for a long moment. She bit her lip, brow furrowed in contemplation, and then asked, softly, “So you want to break up?”

Hermione shook her head. “I’m not saying that, not really. Look it’s just… why don’t we talk about it again after break, okay? We can sit down by ourselves, away from prying eyes and curious ears and where your brothers will not be able to walk in on us and we’ll talk about it again.”

“So… I still have a girlfriend? At least until the end of break?”

Hermione nodded. “You still have a girlfriend, Ginny.”

She sighed in mock-relief (that was a little less ‘mock’ than she might have liked to admit), and said, “Good, because that would be awkward to explain to my family.”

Hermione laughed and hugged Ginny tightly. “You don’t have to worry about anything,” she said, burrowing deeper into the embrace and Ginny’s warm jumper.

But she was wrong; so _incredibly_ wrong. And Ginny knew it, too. But she didn’t have the heart to say anything. She couldn’t tell Hermione that she really _did_ have to worry about everything — about her parents finding out their relationship was a sham, about Ron murdering her in her sleep, about falling in love with Hermione, about Hermione finding out that she was _falling in love with her_ …

She really had everything to worry about.

But she could pretend.

Even if it was just for now.

**

When it was almost time to turn in for the night — and Ginny and Hermione were reclining shoulder-to-shoulder on the double bed (Hermione reading one of her textbooks, Ginny studying Quidditch plays) — the door to the room burst open with a loud _bang,_ forcing Ginny upright with a startled jolt. Hermione — who was much more composed, clearly — merely jumped and dropped her book down onto her chest.

Mrs. Weasley stood in the doorway, slightly out of breath and carrying what looked to be a lot of folded wash in her hands.

Ginny frowned, her heart still pounding in her chest at the unexpected interruption. “Mum? Did you need something?”

Mrs. Weasley stared at the two of them sitting so close that their sides were flush. Hermione (always astute, always aware) darkened considerably and cleared her throat. She shifted ever so slightly and threw her legs over the side of the bed, angling her body away from Ginny’s and putting some (unnecessary) space between them.

Mrs. Weasley still hadn’t said anything, so Ginny prodded, again, “Mum?”

This seemed to shake her from whatever trance she had fallen into.

She glanced at the cot, still sitting untouched in a corner of the room, and suddenly a smile erupted onto her face. It wasn’t a normal smile, but… strained. Forced, almost. It made Ginny frown. “I just came to help you set up Hermione’s bed, dear.”

Hermione and Ginny shared a significant look.

Ginny cleared her throat and stood up even as her mother started fussing with the sheets, pulling them over the corners of the bed and smoothing them out (which was strange because she never made the beds by hand — using magic was always so much faster). “That’s okay, Mum, you don’t have to do that. Hermione and I don’t mind—”

With her back still facing them (hands still fussing over sheets as more and more things were added to the bed — covers and blankets and pillows), Mrs. Weasley said, in a light voice, “Unless one of you girls would be more comfortable sharing with Fleur. I’m sure that she wouldn’t mind switching with you, Ginny, and then you could bunk with your brother.”

Ginny’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “I think Bill would be pretty displeased with that,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “And also… that makes no sense. Hermione and I always share a room.”

“Yes… well I think it… it’s a little different, now that you…” She paused in what she was doing and turned to face them, her cheeks flushed a dark red. “It just may not be _proper_ for you two to share a room now.”

Hermione coughed and Ginny could practically _feel_ her shifting uncomfortably from all the way across the room. But Ginny could not take her incredulous gaze off of her mother. “But… _why_? Bill and Fleur share a room!”

“Bill and Fleur are both of age!”

“Hermione’s of age!” Ginny practically shouted.

“Not really helping, Gin,” Hermione muttered from behind her (but Ginny waved her off).

“Is this because we’re dating? Because… Mum… _nothing’s_ going to happen. I mean… I mean the house is _packed,_ you and Dad are literally right downstairs…”

“ _Ginny_ ,” Hermione admonished quietly from behind her.

Ginny turned and stared at her. “Hermione you _have_ to see that this is ridiculous.”

Hermione bit her lip, glanced at Molly, and shrugged. “If it… if it makes your mum more comfortable then I don’t mind sleeping somewhere else.”

Ginny shook her head adamantly. “No. _No._ That’s stupid. You can sleep here, in this room, like you _always do_.” She turned back to her mother. “Hermione and I have been sharing a room since I was ten, and I don’t see why we have to stop now.”

Mrs. Weasley looked back and forth between the pair of them, opening and closing her mouth a few times (clearly desperate to fight, to say something, to argue or demand that they agree with what she was saying) but in the end she just sighed and turned back to the bed.

“Separate beds,” she said, seeming very put-out by the concession. “And door open.”

Hermione and Ginny both nodded their agreement.

Mrs. Weasley sighed once more and left without any further words, without even another glance back at them.

When her mother had disappeared down the stairs Ginny sank onto the bed, feeling very confused and more than a little exhausted. She shook her head. “I don’t understand her, sometimes.”

Hermione sighed. “You didn’t have to antagonize her.”

Ginny’s head whipped around to face her, eyes wide and disbelieving. “You’re joking, Hermione.” Hermione didn’t say anything, but looked down at her shoes. “’Mione she wanted you to share with _Fleur_.”

Hermione sighed again. “Fleur is perfectly fine,” Ginny scoffed (Hermione ignored her), “and anyways it would only be while we were sleeping. It’s hardly something to start an argument about.”

“But she was being mental!”

“Yeah, she was a bit. But also… I mean I _get_ it. No, don’t give me that look Ginny, I _do_. I mean…” she looked down at her feet and worried her lip, “no parent is really going to be jumping at the opportunity to let their underage daughter share a room with her significant other.”

Ginny rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Oh that’s ridiculous. Dad didn’t throw that big of a fit when Harry slept in here.”

Hermione’s head whipped up, an inscrutable expression tightening her brows. “Harry slept in here?” Ginny nodded. “With you?” Another nod. A brief pause. “When?”

“Um… a few days ago, I think? Why? What’s it matter?”

“No it… nothing. It’s nothing.” But Hermione didn’t really look like she believed that it was nothing. “We should go to bed, Gin. It’s late.”

“Oh um… sure.” Hermione moved towards the cot. “Are you actually going to sleep there?” Ginny asked, a little surprised.

Hermione nodded. “I don’t want to make your mother any angrier or… or any more worried than she already seems to be. These are stressful times, what with… what with the holidays and the war and your brother not coming home…” Ginny felt that it was a little rude of Hermione to pull the Percy-card at a moment like this, though she had to begrudgingly admit the strength of Hermione’s logic (Hermione’s logic was usually faultless).

“Okay,” Ginny said quietly, “if that’s what you want.”

They slipped into their separate beds and with a flick of Hermione’s wand the lights were out.

The air felt thick with… something. Some kind of tension Ginny didn’t understand. She had the itching urge to say… to clarify… she needed to…

“I was having nightmares,” she blurted suddenly. “That’s why Harry slept in here. I didn’t want… I didn’t want to be by myself. And it was only the once.”

She wasn’t sure if Hermione was going to say anything when she was silent for several long moments, but then she said, quietly, “You don’t need to explain anything, Ginny.”

“No but… but I feel like I do. Harry and I aren’t… there’s nothing there, Hermione.”

“It would be alright if there was.” And maybe it was because Ginny couldn’t see Hermione’s face, but that sentence felt very, very fake to her. And she wasn’t exactly sure why. Something in the lilt of Hermione’s tone rubbed her entirely the wrong way and made her feel as if Hermione might be saying it through clenched teeth or a tight throat (but that couldn’t possibly be true).

“I mean… I mean I _know_ it would be okay if there was, but there isn’t anything. Harry’s like my brother. We’re friends, and that’s all.”

“I already told you that—”

“No I know but… but I want you to know. Just… just so that you know.”

Hermione didn’t reply for a very long time; so long, in fact, that Ginny felt for sure that she must have fallen asleep. Right when Ginny was about to roll over onto her side, however, Hermione’s soft voice called out in the darkness, “Thank you for telling me.”

Ginny swallowed thickly and didn’t say anything back.

When she fell asleep it was a dark and fitful slumber, and it did not leave her very well-rested at all.

**

Ginny woke up screaming.

Not shrieking, not thrashing, but with a whimpering, startled yell that jolted her up and awake, panting and sweating and clutching her blankets to her chest.

“Ginny?” Hermione’s quiet voice called through the pitch-black room.

The sound made Ginny jump. She had forgotten that Hermione was here. She blinked a few times, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the dark room, trying to get any light to filter into her dry eyes (if she could just see _something_ … if she could just make out the shape of the bed, or Hermione’s form, or if she could see a little strip of light peeking in from under the door, it would make this all a whole lot easier).

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, trying to slow her pounding pulse, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

The sound of covers being pushed back, soft padding feet on hardwood floors, and then the bed dipped with Hermione’s weight.

Ginny fought the desire to sink towards her, to fall into the heat of her body and forget.

“Are you alright?” Ginny didn’t respond. She didn’t know how to.

 _Was_ she alright? She doubted it very much. She was tired and she couldn’t sleep and she kept having nightmares — hearing cold, angry voices in cold, dark tunnels — and she couldn’t think and she couldn’t sleep and she was _exhausted_.

So no, she really wasn’t alright. But she also didn’t want to _say_ that.

Hermione seemed to understand. She moved further up the bed (it was so dark in the house, in the room, in the night that Ginny couldn’t see her approaching — but she knew that Hermione _was_ approaching) but she misjudged the distance.

Suddenly she was close, so close to Ginny’s chest and mouth and body that her breath ghosted over Ginny’s lips when she said, softly, with a hitch in her breath, “Did you have another nightmare?”

Ginny nodded (she knew Hermione couldn’t see her but she didn’t trust her own voice so she couldn’t speak).

“Roll over,” Hermione whispered again, and Ginny didn’t even realize that she was obeying until she found herself on her side, back to Hermione’s invisible form.

Hermione slid into the bed and wrapped her arm tightly around Ginny’s waist, front pressed flush to Ginny’s back, nose brushing at the back of Ginny’s neck. Ginny bit her lip to fight against the whisper tugging at her throat. Her body moved of its own volition, sinking back into Hermione’s embrace, nuzzling back, pressing into Hermione’s pelvis. She fought the blush which threatened to overtake her and forced her breathing to be even.

She felt something brush at the back of her neck (did Hermione just _kiss_ her?) before Hermione mumbled, sleepily, “Goodnight, Ginny.”

“Night, ‘Mione.”

And she closed her eyes and reveled in the warmth of Hermione’s body pressed against hers and thought — not for the first time and certainly not for the last — that she was well and truly fucked.

**

At about nine-o’clock on the evening of the 31st of December, Ginny was finally able to pull herself away from helping with her mum’s party preparations in order to _actually_ get ready for the night (it had taken her pleading, “ _Well if you just want me to wear this mum, all you had to do was ask,”_ before a grumbling Mrs. Weasley had sent her upstairs — with a wayward eye on Hermione, who trailed just a few paces after her. Both girls missed the look).

Ginny was fussing with her troublesome hair in the bathroom. She cursed under her breath as it adamantly refused to just do what she wanted. Her dress was nice and unwrinkled (a rarity for her), her heels were just high enough to accentuate her calf muscles, and her eye-makeup was tastefully done. She wore green, which (she had on good authority) looked great on her, even if it _did_ evoke unfortunate ‘ode de Slytherin’ amongst most of her family.

She looked good, basically. Nice dress, nice shoes, nice makeup… Ginny rarely put in much of an effort towards her appearance, so when _she_ did bother to attempt something half-way decent, she liked to go all the way with it.

But her fucking hair wouldn’t _cooperate_.

She grumbled, wand clenched tightly between her teeth as she made her way out of the bathroom, hair tangled in her fingers and halfway through a messy braid.

“Hermi’e,” she managed to call around the wand, tongue thick and voice muffled, “he’p?”

She brushed their shared bedroom door open with her hip. The sight that greeted her made her freeze in the doorway, hands slipping slack from her hair and teeth biting harder into her wand.

Hermione stood in front of the lone, dusty mirror in the room. Her back was to Ginny as she affixed one long, dangling earring to her right ear. She glanced up, straightening her head and letting her hair fall down to cover her bare shoulders. Her reflection made eye contact with Ginny briefly, and she smiled, but Ginny had already looked away, because her eyes were drawn — transfixed — on Hermione’s bare back.

Her dress was undone, the zipper all the way down to past her hips.

Ginny’s mouth ran dry as her fingers twitched with longing.

 _Fuck_.

“I’m glad you’re here, Gin. Do you think can you zip me up?” A pause, a beat where Ginny didn’t move. “Ginny?” Hermione prodded again, and Ginny blinked and shook herself.

Ginny grabbed the wand from her mouth and threw it onto the empty and unmade bed. “Sorry. Sorry, yeah.”

Ginny’s hands shook as she took a few steps forward. Her fingers slipped a little on the cold zipper of the dress, and she fought to keep them steady, to keep them safe, to keep them off of Hermione’s bare skin. Her eyes lingered on the curve of Hermione’s neck — her hair fell over one shoulder — and she wanted to bend her head just a little bit, just enough to kiss—

“Thanks so much,” Hermione smiled at her in the mirror and Ginny shot her a halfhearted smile back.

It felt like a lifetime before the dress was closed, before Ginny was able to blink and pull her hands away (it couldn’t have been more than three seconds but it felt like an eternity).

Hermione then turned and faced Ginny full on. Her eyes slid down Ginny’s form and then back up, and she nodded approvingly. “You look great.”

“Thanks. So do you.”

Hermione’s eyes flicked to Ginny’s hair, and she giggled. “You want me to fix that for you?”

“Could you? It won’t behave, and I never got the handle on household magic charms.”

Hermione shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to _magic_ your hair into behaving, Gin. I’m just going to braid it.”

“Hermione, I’m telling you it won’t _cooperate_ —”

“I lived seventeen years with hair like this, you think I can’t handle a simple braid?” She quirked an eyebrow, a challenging smirk on her mouth.

Ginny laughed and blushed, just a little. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have assumed.”

“Here, go in front of the mirror.”

Hermione had to stand on her toes (the extra height of Ginny’s heels put them a few inches apart) in order to get her hands in Ginny’s hair, but when she did, her fingers were soft and sure and smooth.

Ginny watched Hermione in the mirror, picture of perfect concentration, eyes fixed to Ginny’s hair and tongue poking out just slightly between her teeth.

It was adorable.

“There you go, all done.”

Ginny blinked and refocused on her own reflection. She grinned when she saw the outcome. “It looks great, Hermione, thanks.” She turned around to face the other girl when her eyes caught the gentle sparkle of something dazzling against Hermione’s breastbone. “Oh,” Ginny said, a little shocked. “Are you… are you wearing that?” She asked in a quiet, almost reverent voice.

Hermione glanced down at her dress. She frowned. “Is there something wrong with this dress? I thought—”

“No I mean… not the dress the dress is… the dress is _wow_.” Hermione laughed. Ginny smiled weakly. “I meant… well tha-that’s the necklace I got you for your seventeenth.”

Hermione laughed and reached a hand up, gripping the pendant almost subconsciously. “Yeah, I wear it all the time. I told you I loved it.”

Ginny fought a blush. “I sort of thought you were just being nice,” she murmured lowly.

Hermione shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” She craned her neck up and kissed Ginny softly on the cheek. “I told you I liked it then. And do I ever lie?”

Ginny cleared her throat and looked anywhere but at Hermione’s face. “Well I mean… _technically_ our entire relationship is a fabricated scam in order to fuck with my brother, so, I mean you _did_ lie about that…”

Hermione rolled her eyes again. “Why do I pretend to date you when you treat me so horribly?”

“Clearly you care very deeply about our friendship. That’s why you’re at Grimmauld Place for New Year’s with my family and the Order when you could be somewhere exotic, like France, doing something ridiculous, like that… that wooden stick sledding thing.”

Hermione laughed. “You mean skiing?”

Ginny rolled her eyes and grasped Hermione’s hand, pulling her out of the bedroom door. “Don’t make up words, ‘Mione.”

~~

Her mum was acting strangely. Ginny couldn’t quite explain it, but something about her mum was really off-putting tonight. And the worst thing was that there wasn’t even an _explanation_ for it.

She was lovely and kind and respectful to everyone; the picture of a perfect host to Lupin and Tonks and even fucking _Fleur_ (and her mum _hated_ Fleur), but to Hermione she was…

Ginny frowned as she watched a strained interaction between a desperately confused Hermione and her obstinate mother. From her position across the room, Ginny could see Hermione speaking a few quiet words, but her mum wasn’t even looking at her, didn’t even bring her head up from where she was arranging food on a platter to glance at the woman speaking to her.

Hermione looked up at Ginny, eyes wide and hopeless and confused.

Ginny wished she could provide some sort of comfort, but she had none to give, for she had no explanation for this completely strange behavior.

She just had to shrug.

Her mum left, leaving Hermione alone and disappearing off into the kitchen to do… something (or maybe nothing at all). Ginny picked her way through the room as swiftly as she dared.

She made it to Hermione’s side in seconds, slipping a warm arm around her waist. “Are you okay?” She asked in a low voice.

Hermione shrugged but she was clearly shaken. “I just… you see it too, right? That she isn’t…” Hermione sighed. “I just don’t understand.”

Ginny shook her head. “I don’t understand either.” She paused for a moment. “Do you want me to do something? I can ask her what’s wrong, if you want.”

Hermione shook her head. “No. No don’t… don’t worry about it. It’s holiday, I’m sure she’s just stressed.”

Ginny huffed. “Just because she’s stressed doesn’t give her the right to treat you the way she has.”

“Really Ginny it’s okay—” But Ginny was already gone, ignoring Hermione’s reassurances as she stalked off into the kitchen.

“Mum, we need to talk.” Ginny said, crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes.

“Can it wait a few moments, dear? I need to get this out to the party.” Tiny treacle tarts were piled four-high on a large golden serving dish about as round as a couch cushion. It was enough food to feed the entire order, ignoring the fact that there were _already_ dishes and platters full of Mrs. Weasley’s best cooking weighing down the ancient dining room table. Surely their relatively-small gathering didn’t need _another_ desert option.

“No it _can’t_ wait, Mum,” Ginny said firmly, straightening her spine and squaring her shoulders. “I really need—”

At that moment Hermione raced into the kitchen, mouth open and words forming on her lips (surely a warning, a plea, an attempt to stop whatever confrontation was about to unfold), only to be greeted by the sight of Mrs. Weasley, staggering under the weight of a large platter full of food.

So distracted was she by her desire to aid and help and fix that Hermione momentarily forgot what she came in there to do. Instead she hurried forward, and offered, “Oh Mrs. Weasley, let me help you with—”

“That’s quite alright dear,” Mrs. Weasley said snappishly, moving her arms away from where Hermione had reached forward attempting to assist her, “I’ve got it.”

Hermione blinked and shrank in on herself, and suddenly she looked younger than Ginny had seen in years. “Oh,” she breathed quietly. “Yes, sorry.” She frowned and looked down at her shoes, unsure what to do or say or feel.

And it was… it was something about that little movement, about the way Hermione shrank down into her own body, at the way she seemed to recoil, at how very _unwelcome_ she looked amongst this group of friends and family that _should_ have loved her unconditionally…

Ginny snapped.

“What is _wrong_ with you, Mum?” She exclaimed loudly. She noticed only a peripheral sort of softening of exterior noise (some of the others closest to them had fallen silent at her outburst) but otherwise she paid them no mind.

Mrs. Weasley blinked and looked at Ginny, a look of faux-innocence on her face. “I’s sure I don’t know what you—”

“Oh cut the crap, Mum.” Molly gasped at Ginny’s language, but before she could get the scolding words off of her tongue, Ginny continued, her voice rising with passion. “You’ve been distant and cold and honestly _rude_ ever since Hermione showed up here and I’m sick of it.”

Mrs. Weasley stammered, “I have _not_ been—”

“Oh yes you have.” Ginny practically snarled. “You’re being… you’re _ignoring_ her, Mum!” Ginny grabbed Hermione’s hand — as a show of solidarity against her mother or as a desperately-needed anchor, she was not sure — and the grip seemed to steady her. “She’s my best friend — and my _girlfriend_ , by the way — and the way you’ve been treating her has been completely unacceptable!”

“Ginny,” Hermione whispered, her cheeks flushed in embarrassment from all of the attention now directed at the three of them (she could feel Ron’s triumphant smirk and Harry’s horrified wide eyes trained her way and she was beginning to feel queasy). “Gin, it’s okay…”

“It is _not_ okay!” Ginny turned her fiery gaze from her mother to her friend. “You haven’t done anything wrong! She has no right—”

“Gin it’s really—”

“ _Why_ are you doing this? I mean,” Ginny scoffed and looked around the room, “Hermione’s been coming here for _years_ , and you’ve always loved her! You can’t even _stand_ Fleur, and Percy, the prat, didn’t even _show up_.” Her mother recoiled at that, but Ginny pressed on. “You know Charlie, Fred, and George will be single for the rest of their lives, and _Ron_ ,” Ginny said his name with a glower and sneer, “Ron couldn’t dump Hermione fast enough for the slag _he’s_ spending all his time with now.”

Many of the party goers in the other room muttered, shuffling around in varying states of discomfort and indignant objection. Her brothers looked equally torn between speaking out in defense of themselves and grumbling admittance to the relative truth behind her outburst. (After all, Ginny had always been honest to a fault, always been the least likely of any of them to mince her words or to take any bullshit. Fred and George never even picked on her — though they got ample glee from teasing Ron to no end. Ginny didn’t fuss around, she never had, and had always been stubbornly determined to speak her mind however she liked and damn the consequences.)

“So why are you being so rude to _my_ girlfriend, Mum? You at least _like_ Hermione. I would think that you’d be _happy_ I didn’t turn out like your sons.”

A deathly quiet fell over the two women, who stared each other down with an unfortunate Hermione a close and unwilling bystander to the tension.

After a long while (longer than was strictly comfortable), Mrs. Weasley finally cracked. She spoke in a rushed, quick, and angry voice, face flushed with mild rage and probable exhilaration. “I just find it _very_ curious,” she hissed out in a low voice that cut Ginny straight through her chest, “that Hermione seems to jump so _quickly_ between romantic partners.” Ginny and Hermione both opened their mouths to protest but they did not get the chance. The room was so still that every word of Mrs. Weasley’s low accusations reached every person present in the cramped space. “First Victor Krum, and then when _he_ didn’t work out, Harry, and then when no more _famous_ wizards wanted her, the next best thing,” she gestured to Ron, “the best friend of a famous wizard. And then when _he_ was out of the picture, that friend’s _sister_. Hermione _does_ like to keep herself attached to fame and talent, doesn’t she?”

Hermione blinked, her eyes welling with tears for several reasons, not the least of which being that Mrs. Weasley (a woman she had admired almost her entire life) apparently _despised_ her, but also because she despised her for _unfounded rumours_.

Mrs. Weasley was bright red now (from the heat of her words or the heat of the room, Ginny couldn’t be certain), but her voice was just as cutting as before, “You’re making your way quite quickly through my children, Hermione Granger,” she said in a low voice (apparently deciding that direct confrontation was now the best course of action), “and I do not appreciate it.” Mrs. Weasley glared at Hermione, who stood in front of this crowded, silent room shell-shocked and unable to comprehend exactly _what_ was happening to her.

“I… Mrs. Weasley…” she ventured, almost whimpering, but she was silenced immediately.

Mrs. Weasley pointed an accusatory finger at her. “You are going to break her heart, like I’m sure you broke Harry’s, and like I _know_ you broke Ron’s. Ginny’s right; I do not like this relationship… I do not _approve_ of it.” She rounded on her daughter and continued, with only slightly less venom and fire to her words, “I want you to be _safe_. I want to protect you, and Hermione is going to ruin you.”

Hermione’s eyes had long since overflowed with tears, and she stood shaking, lip clenched between her teeth.

Ginny couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t… she didn’t know what to say. She shook her head and tried to breathe but found that it was almost impossible. The silence was too much, the tension was too thick, and as shock and disbelief and protest rose in her chest, she wasn’t sure what she would do next.

Hermione made the decision for her.

“I can’t do this, Ginny,” Hermione whispered, unable to look at the girl next to her, slipping her hot and sweaty hand from Ginny’s furious grip.

“Hermione please…” Ginny tried, turning away from her mother. She felt desperate and upset and flustered and she absolutely did _not_ want Hermione to walk away and leave her alone to deal with… with _this_.

“No I can’t… I can’t keep doing this. Not like...” Hermione wrenched her gaze away from Molly’s to where Ginny stood motionless next to her. “She’s right. I’m going to break your heart. And I can’t keep this up… it isn’t fair.” Her gaze was loaded and significant, and Ginny knew immediately that this wasn’t just an act put on to preserve the lies they had been spinning. “I’m sorry.” Hermione reached up and gracefully (easily, too easily) undid the clasp of her necklace. She slid it away from her breast bone, and Ginny watched it, dangling in midair like some cruel metaphor that she was too distraught to figure out.

Hermione pressed the necklace into Ginny’s noticeably empty palm and wrapped Ginny’s fingers around the warm metal. “I’m sorry.” Hermione whispered again, and then she was gone, fleeing past the others in the room and disappearing out the front door with barely a sound save her ragged breathing. The door didn’t even close loudly enough to wake the portrait of Mrs. Black.

Ginny stood in the silent room, gaping uselessly at the empty space in front of her where Hermione had stood mere seconds before.

“Ginny…” Bill ventured, taking a few steps towards her and laying a hand on her shoulder (probably in an attempt to comfort her, but Ginny was not having it).

The touch shocked her awake again, and jolted her into action.

She threw his hand off with a hissed, “Don’t touch me,” and then she was gone too, out the front door and into the freezing London winter without a coat or hat or wrap or _anything_.

She was shivering in seconds, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was finding—

“Hermione!” Ginny yelled, her head jerking violently from side-to-side as she tried to spot something… _anything_ that looked familiar.

A hunched figure strode with fast, sure steps about thirty paces down the road, headed towards an intersection and a bus stop. There was no other movement along the dark street, and Ginny’s heart leapt into her throat and she tore down the pavement, kicking her shoes off as she ran. “Hermione!” She yelled again, and the figure turned. Hermione’s blotchy and tear-streaked face watched her approach, uselessly and devastatingly distraught.

“Ginny, please, I just want to go home.”

Ginny skidded to a stop in front of her, lungs gasping for brutally cold air, toes aching from the icy streets. She wondered briefly where her shoes had got to, but she shook away those lingering thoughts because they didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except this moment with Hermione.

“Please don’t leave. Please… come back inside, let me…” Ginny shook her head, “I don’t know. Let’s just… get plastered and forget that this happened.”

Hermione shook her head no and turned away, moving to walk farther, to walk faster, but Ginny grabbed her arm and yanked her to a stop.

Hermione’s eyes, when they met hers, burned with an angry determination. “Let go, Ginny.”

Ginny shook her head fiercely. “No. _No,_ I just… please don’t leave like this.” She begged, and she was not surprised in the least when her voice cracked on the words. She felt saltwater tears freeze on her cheeks as they slid down her face. When she spoke next, her voice was soft and choked with emotion and despair: “Please don’t leave me like this.”

“Your mum _hates_ me, Ginny. She hates… she completely disapproves of our relationship.” Hermione blinked a few rapid times and shivered as a particularly sharp gust of air nipped at her bare shoulders. “I mean, I _know_ it’s pretend but do you understand how _gutting_ it is to hear… to hear a woman you _care_ about, completely _destroy_ you in front of the people you love most?” Hermione wiped at her eyes and shivered again in the cold.

“Hermione, it’s freezing out here, please come inside and we can—”

“It’s _humiliating_ , Ginny,” Hermione cut in, breath ragged and cheeks flushed, arms crossed over her chest and hands tucked under her armpits in an attempt to keep them warm. “She _despises_ me. She thinks I’m a slag, a heartbreaker of rich, famous, and powerful wizards. She _definitely_ doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.”

Ginny floundered helplessly. “We’re… this isn’t _about_ her, alright? Who cares if she approves? Last I checked, she wasn’t the one we—”

“I can’t just keep doing this, Ginny!” Hermione practically yelled, finally pulling her arms out of their defensive positions as anger overtook her body. “We can’t keep pretending like this! Look, this did what it was meant to do, it drove Ron up the wall but… I can’t keep… not knowing… not when she…” Hermione looked at Ginny with a desperate sort of sadness. “And she’s right, you know?”

“About _what_?” Ginny asked incredulously

Hermione scoffed. “I mean… this relationship isn’t exactly _going_ anywhere is it?” Ginny recoiled from the venom of the words. Hermione continued, almost coldly, “So we might as well… call the whole thing off, right? I mean… what perfect timing.” Hermione tilted her head to the dark sky and tried to take in a few calming breaths.

She started in surprise as soft snowflakes began to descend upon the two of them, leaving cold prints on her forehead and eyelashes. Hermione laughed humorlessly. “How fucking poetic,” she grumbled.

“Hermione…” Ginny moved forward but was immediately startled from her thoughts by explosions all around them.

Ginny jumped, instinctively grabbing for Hermione and shoving her to the side of the pavement, both of their heads ducked low as light burst from every direction.

For a few terrifying moments, Ginny thought they were under attack, that the Death Eaters had finally found Number 12 Grimmauld Place, that dark wizards were firing at them from all sides and she was surely in the last few moments of her life… but then she realized.

The sky had erupted into fireworks.

Ginny and Hermione looked around and up at the bursts and showers of sparks illuminating London, as noisemakers and joyous shouts reached their ears from all sides, and choruses of “Happy New Year!” sounded up and down the road.

Ginny turned to Hermione. Neither spoke for a long moment.

Hermione took in a shuddering breath. “Happy New Year, I guess.”

Ginny lunged forward and grasped Hermione’s face between her hands, bringing their lips together with bruising force (shockingly reminiscent of their first kiss all those months ago). For exactly six seconds, Ginny’s heart was in her throat as Hermione kissed her back, allowing their lips to slide together ruthlessly for a brief moment of bliss and exhilaration.

Then Hermione wrenched herself away and Ginny’s world came crashing back to reality.

“I can’t… I can’t,” Hermione whispered, fresh tears falling down her face as she stumbled backwards and away from the younger girl. “I’m sorry Ginny, I can’t…”

Ginny reached for her, mouth open to say something, _anything_ , but Hermione twisted and was gone with a _crack_ , leaving Ginny alone, frozen, heartbroken, and shivering on an empty street, surrounded on all sides by celebrating people and happy couples, and she had never felt more miserable in her entire life.

**


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being so patient with me, for sticking with this story, and for continuing to leave kudos and comments — I read and appreciate every single one. I hit a little bit of a rough patch in terms of life/motivation, and so I’ve been working on this chapter for far too much time. It’s been a long time coming, but here’s your next update.
> 
> Also, you may have noticed that I've changed the fic length. As I've been writing, I've found that it's very likely I'm not going to be able to wrap everything up nicely in the next chapter. Expect at least 2 more (plus an Epilogue that has mostly been written).
> 
> Enjoy.

**

The door shut quietly behind her as the frigid outside wind howled and fought against the ancient frame of the small home. Dark wooden walls pressed against her back, hungry and aching and looming, as if the house was trying to collapse in on her.

Ginny’s feet — rubbed red-raw from the cold — tingled as the warmth from inside slowly restored sensation to her numb toes. Her hair was damp and it pressed heavily into the crown of her head, and snowflakes clung precariously to her eyelashes (though they were rapidly melting).

She blinked a few times in an attempt to clear her vision, but her eyes were thick and heavy and her hands were shaking and her feet hurt and no amount of blinking could shake the fog from her mind.

As her fingertips and toes began to regain feeling (the stabbing pins, which indicated blood flow, barely made her wince), Ginny suddenly found that she felt terribly, horribly, utterly empty.

And tired.

She was very tired.

“Ginny?” Harry’s quiet voice spoke from a few metres away.

Ginny looked up, her eyes unfocused and blurry. Harry stared back at her, concern growing in his light eyes, his brow furrowed and his hair its usual state of unkempt messiness. Something about the picture almost made Ginny want to smile, but as soon as the feeling rose in her chest it disappeared again. (She wasn’t sure if it was ever really there to begin with.)

Harry took a few steps forward, drawing right up in front of her. He put a hand on her shoulder but Ginny barely felt the pressure.

“Ginny… what happened?” He asked quietly (practically whispered), head inclined, green eyes searching.

She shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together. She blinked a few times and silent, angry, heartbroken tears slid unbidden down her cheeks before she was able to catch them with her fingers and brush them aside. “She left,” she whispered, her throat tight and her mouth dry. She ran a thick tongue over chapped lips and nodded a few times to herself. “She left,” she repeated, even quieter, head down and eyes to the floor. She swallowed thickly and her right knee shook and she was so tired but all she just wanted to do was _leave_ ; to walk, to get out of this entrance hall with all of these people and just—

“Are you… are you two okay?”

She looked up at Harry then, her eyes meeting his through the clear lenses of his glasses. “No,” she said truthfully. “No, I don’t think that we are.”

He stepped forward and his arms slipped around her shoulders, drawing her against him, squeezing her tightly to his chest. Her ribs creaked inside her torso and she gripped the back of his jumper with desperation, burying her face in the warm fabric. She breathed in deeply for several long moments (even as her tears slipped from her cheeks and pooled onto his shoulder, darkening the wool).

It couldn’t have been very comfortable, scratchy wool becoming laden with salty water, but Harry didn’t comment, and so Ginny didn’t move.

He smelled warm, like clean laundry and sunny days and some sort of dull soap that Ginny recognized as Ron’s.

He smelled vaguely of Ron.

She buried her head deeper, breathed deeper, and her throat tightened and bobbed as she tried to swallow.

“Ginny… I…” She looked up at the sound of this new voice, her eyes full and red-rimmed. Her chin on Harry’s shoulder, she made eye contact with her mother.

Mrs. Weasley stood in the open doorway to the kitchen. Warm light emanated around her, but it only served to cast dark shadows down the length of her face. She rested inside a halo of warmth and yet was separate from it. (Very fitting, all things considered.)

Ginny thought that maybe she should be filled with rage; that she should yell, should curse, should pull out her wand, should scream and cry and sob and break things until the whole fucking street knew just how much she was _hurting_.

But she didn’t. She should have done; in most instances she probably would have. It was well within her character… well within her _personality_ to do it. She _should_ break things. She _should_ cast curses and hexes, she _should_ stomp away and throw a fit. She should, honestly. She had always lacked that certain level-headedness that so embodied her eldest brothers. She took more after Fred and George than Bill or Charlie or Percy; prone to intense anger and emotional outbursts and ‘act first, think later.’ She fought with her spells, not with her words.

And _yes_ , her fingers twitched, aching to form into fists she could destroy and abuse. And _yes_ , her mind raced with hexes and spells she could scream until her voice was hoarse. And _yes_ , her legs shook with the desire to run, to _leave_ this place and go anywhere else; to escape this tiny house full of anger and hurt and memories and bad dreams and her mother and her brother and her family, with their eyes all trained on her, not speaking and not knowing what to say.

She wanted to; she honestly did.

But in this moment she found that she couldn’t scream. Even as she stared at her mother, catching eyes that were so very much like her own, she wasn’t… she wasn’t _mad_. She was just… defeated.

And tired. She was really very tired.

So she stared at her mother, her arms wrapped tightly around Harry, and did not blink. Her brow did not furrow, her ears did not glow red with her anger, she did not scream or curse or sneer. She did not pull her wand or jump away; she did not storm out the door or up the stairs. She just stared, her eyes filling with slow but steady tears, and did not blink.

Finally, her mother looked away.

Ginny took a breath.

“I’m going to bed,” she whispered into Harry’s ear. When she pulled away from him he opened his mouth as if to say something, but she just shook her head. “That’s alright, Harry,” her voice was remarkably strong even as she continued to cry. The tears weren’t thick now; they weren’t heavy or building in the space behind her eyes. They weren’t pushing against the boundaries of her skin as they fought their way out of her body.

She wasn’t even totally sure _why_ she was still crying. Her tears were not motivated. Not really.

It just felt like she was crying because she didn’t know how to stop.

She met Harry’s gaze. “I’ll be…” she started to say, but then stopped. A beat. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And as she climbed the stairs to her room she knew… she _knew_ that it wasn’t real, that… that Hermione hadn’t _actually_ broken up with her. She knew that they hadn’t been dating. She wasn’t daft or mad, she could separate reality from acting. It wasn’t real. _It wasn’t real_.

But fuck if it didn’t feel like they had really split up.

It honestly felt like…

Because she was in love with Hermione. She was pretty sure about that, at this point. Not a hundred percent certain, of course, but reasonably positive.

She was in love with Hermione. And yes, maybe their relationship was fake, but her feelings certainly weren’t.

And the fact that her mum… the fact that she had said all of those…

And _then_ there was the fact that when Ginny kissed her — out there in the snow with no one around to see them — Hermione had kissed her back for just a second, just a moment, before she tore herself away with tears in her eyes. There was the fact that she had kissed Hermione and Hermione had responded briefly before wrenching herself away and disapparating off to Merlin knows where, leaving Ginny alone and cold and rejected.

It wasn’t a breakup. Not really.

But it _was_ something. It was a… it was a broken something, a tear in the general fabric of their relationship that Ginny hadn’t…

It was _something_. Something had broken between them. She didn’t know _what_ it was but she could feel it pressing against her chest, looming over her shoulder. She could feel the words, so big and strong and present and just out of her reach. She didn’t know what they were but she knew that they were there.

Something had broken.

She just didn’t know what.

She should never have done this. She should never have been so… so utterly _stupid_. She should never have kissed Hermione, should never have started this stupid rumour, should never have gone along with it, should never have let it get to this point. She should have just kept her distance and stayed Hermione’s friend and nothing more. She should have kept her crush under control, chalked it up to ‘hero worship’ and ‘admiration’ for this girl who had started out as her brother’s friend and had turned into…

She should have left it well enough alone and ignored it and then been done with it.

It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if Hermione never found out how she felt. She would have gotten over it. She would have fallen in love with someone who loved her back, with someone who wanted to fall in love with her, instead of her _best friend_.

She should have… she should have done a lot of things. She should have done a lot of things differently.

But she didn’t. She didn’t do any of them.

So here she was, in a fancy dress on New Year’s Eve, in the strange bedroom of a strange house, alone and without her best friend.

The girl she loved was heartbroken and crying somewhere else while she was just… _here_.

She laid down on the bed, folded her arms in her lap, and stared at the ceiling for a very, very long time.

~~

Ginny hadn’t realized she had fallen asleep until a quiet, tentative knocking roused her.

She opened her eyes and blinked a few times to clear the sleep from them. She was still lying on her back in the middle of the bed (their shared bed), fully dressed and head resting on a pillow damp with melted snow and drying tears. It took her a moment to remember what had transpired, to remember why she was sleeping in a dress and why the lights weren’t off and why her hair was wet and why her head throbbed so badly.

When the fog of sleep lifted and her memories floated back into focus, she clenched her teeth and her jaw and shut her eyes again, trying to force herself back to sleep.

Sleep was easier. She could do sleep.

(She didn’t remember when she slept.)

But then the knocking sounded again, and Ginny knew she couldn’t ignore it. She opened her eyes and turned her head.

Her door was open about half-way (she must have forgotten to shut it when she came up earlier), and so she could see a tall and lanky shadow falling across the floor of her room. Her eyes followed the shadow back to rough trainer-clad feet and up loose-fitting jeans until she made eye contact with her brother.

Ron stood at the door, his hand pressed to the wood, eyes intense and full of something Ginny couldn’t recognize.

He cleared his throat. “Can I come in?”

Ginny nodded but didn’t speak. She wasn’t totally sure she _could_ speak, if she was honest, because her throat felt raw and her tongue felt thick and heavy and her eyes were tired and she didn’t want to move.

She wasn’t totally sure she could speak, but mostly she just didn’t have anything to say.

(She _could_ snap at Ron, could tell him to fuck off, could comment on the fact that of course _now_ he wanted to talk to her, now that she and Hermione had broken up — “ _broken up_ ” — now that her relationship with his ex-girlfriend was no longer a threat to him. She _could_ say all of that — maybe she _should_ say it — but… but even the thought of starting that argument made her bones ache and her head pound and she felt exhausted all over again. So she didn’t say anything.)

He walked into the room and pushed the door shut behind him. Ginny watched him with steady and emotionless eyes.

She thought that maybe she should be feeling more.

Ron cleared his throat and shuffled on his feet.

“Ginny, I…” he started to say, but when his eyes met hers he flushed and looked down. She hardly even blinked.

He took a few more breaths before he straightened his spine and said, “I’m sorry.”

Her face remained impassive. “Are you?”

“Yeah I… I am.”

Ginny scoffed, unable to control herself. “You seemed to _really_ care about my relationship these past few months,” she snapped sarcastically, “what do you _even_ have to be sorry for?”

Ron huffed. “Look, I’m trying to be sympathetic here, yeah, Gin? I’m trying to say that I’m _sorry_ , you don’t need to—”

Her eyes flashed and she shot up in the bed, moving faster than she thought was possible in her current state. “You don’t get to do this,” she fumed, throwing her legs over the side of the mattress, standing and stalking towards him. “You do not get to _guilt_ me into being kind to you, Ronald. Because the last time I checked, you _ignored_ me and Hermione for months, verbally _assaulted_ me during our Quidditch matches, and have been otherwise completely _intolerable_ ever since you found out about us. So excuse me for calling you on it.”

Ron’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Look…” He took a breath, squared his shoulders, and leveled his gaze at her. “I’m not saying that I’ve been perfect. I’m just trying to _apologize_ , Ginny.”

She glared at him and didn’t speak. She reached around his body and yanked the bedroom door open. With considerable force, she shoved Ron backwards by his shoulder, sending him stumbling into the banister outside.

He stared at her, eyes wide while she glared from the doorway to her room. “I don’t want your apology,” she hissed. “You should have tried three months ago.”

She slammed the door and leaned her head against it from one side, feeling her eyes well up against her will.

Ron did not speak to her for the rest of break.

She was thankful.

**

Harry knocked the next morning. Ginny wouldn’t have answered the door (because she _really_ didn’t feel like talking to her mum or her dad or to any of her brothers, and all she really wanted to do was hide in her room and sleep and sleep and sleep until second term began), but Harry called out softly to her through the wood, and because she quite liked Harry, she let him in.

When she pulled the door open, she was met with a very sad smile.

She wanted to scold him, to tell him off for looking at her with such pity, to tell him to knock that ridiculous look off of his face and man up. But she didn’t. She was very tired, and that sounded like a lot of work.

“Hi, Harry.”

“Hey, Gin. How—?” He shook himself. “Sorry, I won’t ask. You probably don’t want to talk about it anyway.”

She smiled tightly. He was perceptive, she would give him that. “Thanks.” A few seconds of tense silence stretched between them, awkward and ringing, before Ginny finally asked, “If you aren’t here to talk, why are you here?”

Harry sighed and looked down at his feet. “Yes. Right. So I… I called Hermione.”

Ginny blinked at him. “You… _called_ Hermione?”

“On the phone. A payphone. Down the street.” He pointed vaguely out the window (which really didn’t help Ginny much at all) but she understood the general sentiment. She may not have had any clue how telephones worked, but she had been to London enough times that she at least knew what they looked like. (She understood the basics of “calling” even if she didn’t technically understand it at all. She wasn’t as hopeless about these things as, say, _Ron_ was.)

She _didn’t_ know Hermione had one inside of her _house_ , though. That was a little strange. Weren’t they too big to fit inside a home? (Maybe Hermione had a very large house?)

And how did Harry know how to _call_ her?

Maybe she _should_ take Muggle Studies.

“And is she… is she alright?”

“She’s fine,” he was quick to assure her (but the words provided little comfort, as Ginny had rather selfishly hoped that Hermione wouldn’t _really_ be ‘fine’). “She’s safe. She went home.”

Ginny nodded. Her body felt heavy. Maybe she should cry (she sort of felt like she wanted to), but her head still throbbed from yesterday, and her eyes felt remarkably and impossibly dry, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to.

She was still wearing her party dress from the night before.

She hadn’t even noticed.

“So you came to tell me she’s safe?”

Harry brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck and bit his lip, nervously. “Not quite. Though that was part of it, for sure.”

“Then why—?”

Harry cut her off. “She asked…” He took a breath. “She wants us to send her things to her parents’ house, in Neasden.”

It struck Ginny then that, prior to this moment, she hadn’t known where Hermione’s family lived. No one had ever mentioned it, she had never visited, had never seen pictures or heard even _one_ anecdote… but how could that be? Surely they must have talked about it… right? How was it possible that in five yeas of friendship, they had never even talked about where Hermione grew up?

(Was Ginny _that_ selfish? Was she _that_ self-involved?)

“So she… isn’t coming back, then?”

Harry shook his head and spoke gently. “She didn’t think it was the best idea. Things are… well, they got a little out of hand, I think. I’m not sure she wants to—”

“It’s fine, Harry,” Ginny snapped at him, turning and moving further into the room so that he couldn’t see the look on her face. “You could have just said ‘ _no_.’”

Harry didn’t respond to that, which was probably wise of him. (He had always been calmer than her, always better able to control his temper, always better at thinking before he spoke and measuring his words in order to protect the feelings of as many people as possible.)

“Do you need any help getting her things together?” He asked softly, like he was afraid if he spoke too loudly he would startle her.

Ginny huffed but she didn’t turn around. “She’s practically packed already, isn’t she? Keeps all of her things folded in her bag and only pulls out what she needs when she needs it.” Ginny’s voice had a hard and accusatory edge to it, and she _knew_ Harry could hear it, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She was mad. She was exhausted. Her head hurt and she didn’t know what to do and she could feel Harry’s eyes on the back of her neck and everything was too much and it was too hot and she was going to snap.

“Well she _is_ very neat,” Harry responded politely.

“ _Neat_ ,” Ginny scoffed, “sure.”

She looked around the room. It _was_ true. She wasn’t lying when she told Harry that Hermione was basically already packed (Harry wasn’t lying when he said Hermione was neat). There was barely a hint of her anywhere in the room, save for the fact that both sides of the wide bed were unmade, and there was a Muggle book on the side table closest to the wardrobe (the side of the bed where Hermione had slept).

Everything else practically screamed ‘Ginny.’ It was Ginny’s shoes littering the floor, Ginny’s makeup spread on the dresser, Ginny’s clothes sticking out of open drawers, Ginny’s school trunk haphazardly pushed against the farthest wall, Ginny’s school books piled on top of it. She was everywhere, in this room. And yes, Hermione had been in Grimmauld Place for less time than Ginny had, that was true, but it… it still didn’t make total sense why Hermione’s belongings were so… _sequestered_. So separate from hers. So timidly segregated.

Like she was a guest. Like she was worried about making a mess or making a fuss simply by unpacking her trunks. Like she didn’t belong.

Ginny didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed, before.

She didn’t know why it bothered her so much now.

(Because Hermione felt _temporary_ ; Hermione’s place in her _life_ felt temporary. She hadn’t unpacked her trunk, like she was half-expecting to have to leave at any moment. She hadn’t put her clothes in the wardrobe, like she was afraid of encroaching on Ginny’s space. She hadn’t even left an errant comb out on the side table; there wasn’t even a stray sock under the bed.)

(It was almost like she had never been there at all.)

Ginny was suddenly very hot, and very uncomfortable, and she was still in her dress from the night before and it was beginning to itch her and it was beginning to feel constricting and she was having trouble breathing and she needed it _off_ and _now_.

She reached her hand up and around to the top of her back. She clawed at the zipper, but her fingers were thick and uncoordinated and she couldn’t get a good grip.

She tried again, this time from the bottom, but she could barely even touch the cold metal with her scrambling fingertips.

She was hot and uncomfortable and she couldn’t breathe and this dress kept reminding her of last night, and the fight with her mum, and kissing Hermione out in the snow, and Hermione _leaving_ and… She needed this dress off of her and she needed it off now.

But she couldn’t get it to budge.

“Here Ginny, why don’t you let me—” Harry took a few steps forward. Ginny heard him approaching, she had plenty of time to prepare for it, and yet when his hands met the bare skin of her shoulders something deep in her stomach snapped and she exploded.

“I don’t _need_ your help!” She screamed, rounding on him, placing two hands flat against his chest. She pushed as hard as she could, and Harry — unprepared as he was for the shove — tripped over his own feet and fell backwards, crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

He blinked up at her from the floor, his eyes wide and his mouth open in surprise.

Ginny, appalled and horrified by what she had just done, clamped her hands over her mouth as her eyes filled with tears.

“I’m… Harry I’m _so_ sorry,” she whispered, the words coming through her hands muffled and heavy. “I don’t know what came… I don’t know what I was…” She dropped her hands to her sides and stepped forward, as if to help him stand, but she froze in her spot because she didn’t know what she should do. “Fuck, Harry, I am so _sorry_.”

He shook his head as he hoisted himself to his feet, brushing off the seat of his trousers. “It’s alright, Ginny,” He said with a quiet and understanding smile on his face. “You don’t need to apologize. I shouldn’t have just touched you like that.”

She shook her head emphatically. “No, Harry _no_. There’s no reason for… Fuck, I’m so sorry I don’t even know what I was thinking or what I was doing I never meant—”

He took a step forward and slipped his arms around her, hugging her tightly.

Her breath caught in her throat.

She was spending a lot of time hugging Harry, recently.

“It’s alright, Ginny,” he said. “I understand.”

He whispered the words against the top of her head, and though Ginny knew it was probably impossible and though Ginny knew that there was no way he could _actually_ understand what she was going through… she believed him.

Harry had a lot of experience with grief. And though the grief and pain she was currently feeling could in no way match or equal the pain of losing one’s parents, or godfather/father figure… Ginny felt that Harry really _did_ understand her. Perhaps in a way no one else had ever been able to.

And she thought that perhaps she understood him too.

She might have loved Harry, once. Certainly he was one of the most incredible people she had ever met, unparalleled in terms of compassion and understanding and patience. Certainly he was handsome, what with his messy hair and bright green eyes, simultaneously childlike and extraordinarily wise. Certainly they had a lot in common, what with Quidditch and their connection to Voldemort and their equal struggle with not being good enough or strong enough, with the weight of measuring up to an impossible family legacy, to an impossible destiny and future.

Ginny hid her face in the crook of his neck and just let herself grieve, for a moment. She paused and let herself breathe and hugged the man she might have loved, in another life.

She was very thankful for him.

**

Her bags arrived with such little fanfare that Hermione wasn’t even entirely sure when it happened.

She stumbled down the stairs and into her family’s lounge at around dinner time — rubbing eyes that were red from an unanticipated nap and desperate for some tea — and almost walked right into them.

There they were, piled on top of each other like some ugly leather smokestack staring her in the face. Teasing her. Taunting her.

It was her fault, really. She was the one who left. She was the one who asked Harry to send her bags home to her, rather than face that situation again… rather than face _Ginny_ again.

 _She_ was the one who ended it.

(She was the coward.)

And _God_ , the way Ginny had looked at her when she—

Best not to think about that now.

But it was like a flood; as soon as she cracked the mental dam thoughts of _Ginny Ginny Ginny_ crashed and tsunami’d over her mind and she couldn’t shake them.

Bits and pieces of the night flashed through her mind like snapshots (she was thankful for the wizarding world for introducing her to moving photographs, because that was how her memories played through her head — not long and cohesive like a film, not static like a painting, but somewhere in between the two).

Ginny with her hair done and in a dress that hung off of her sun-kissed shoulders; the overheated room stuffed full of Weasleys; Harry’s booming laugh; butterbeer that felt like ice as it seeped through the mug in her hand; Mrs. Weasley’s face, bright red with anger; snowflakes clinging to Ginny’s eyelashes; Ginny’s hands warm against her sides; Ginny’s eyes illuminated by fireworks; Ginny’s mouth on hers…

God, what was she going to do? What _could_ she do?

How was she supposed to _do_ this? How was she supposed to—?

It had been so strange, being with Ginny at Grimmauld Place. It hadn’t… God it hadn’t even felt _real_ most of the time.

Ginny sitting next to her at dinner, brushing her shoulder against Hermione’s and leaning over to whisper in her ear whenever she had a snide comment she didn’t want her mother to hear. Ginny lounging next to her while she read on the couch, hand loose in Hermione’s (or else with Hermione’s hand gently running through her hair). Ginny curled up next to her under thick blankets in a dark room, Ginny’s arms wrapped around her waist from behind as Hermione brewed tea, Ginny shooting her a knowing wink from across the breakfast table…

It had all felt like something out of a story book. It had all felt like something out of someone else’s life; like Hermione had just… fallen into another person’s story, another person’s domesticity, another person’s love affair. ( _Someone much luckier_ , she thought ruefully, _to have a life like that with Ginny._ )

She stared at her trunks, so prim and clean (a little bit like her, honestly) and she wondered what to do with them. Should she… unpack them? Keep them packed for school? (Keep them packed so she could return to Grimmauld Place, if need be?)

She glanced at the grandfather clock that her father was so proud of (the one he had spent an entire summer fixing and restoring when she was thirteen). Her parents would be back any moment now, probably with bags of takeaway piled under their arms.

She should, at the very least, move her trunks to her room. She could decide what to do with them later.

Her parents would be home any minute now. And there were sure to be some… _conversations_ (to put it lightly) about her sudden reappearance last night.

They had been so surprised when she had shown up on the front steps at just after midnight, shivering in the cold and clutching her arms to her chest, without her bags or her coat or any money at all (just her wand held in a death-grip in her hand, her cheeks flushed and her lips red from Ginny’s lipstick).

But they hadn’t said or done anything to question her. They just welcomed her inside, threw a blanket over her shoulders, and made her a cuppa. Her mum sat next to her with a hand on her arm for almost a quarter of an hour — hoping in her silent solidarity to get some sort of story from her daughter — but Hermione hadn’t offered her any explanation.

(Call it shell-shock, call it a desire for privacy, call it whatever you like. She hadn’t offered any explanation.)

(Truthfully, she didn’t know how. She didn’t know how to explain the situation to her parents, partly because she hadn’t given them any information prior to her trip to Grimmauld Place that would make them think that this trip was any different from the countless other holidays she had previously spent with the Weasley family. Hadn’t mentioned her faux-relationship with Ginny, her strained relationship with Ron, the way Mrs. Weasley had berated her… none of it.)

They hadn’t pushed or pressed her for details.

They were a quiet family, the Grangers; a family of academics who generally kept to themselves. Her father spoke two languages and her mother spoke three; they spent their winters in France and their summers backpacking or camping around western England (to positive and negative results; an especially unfortunate lake-incident in the Forest of Dean near Hermione’s ninth birthday, for example, ensured that she would never forget _that_ particular excursion anytime soon).

Her parents were as quiet and as studious as she was. They liked reading and music, trips to the theater and outdoor leisure sports. They worked hard and made enough money to be comfortable, enough money to have a nice home and to not have any sort of financial insecurities or worry about any kind of necessity.

They had an undeniably good life. That hadn’t always been the case, though. Her father was from Boston, Lincolnshire, and the day he came home to his tiny town with a black fiancée… it hadn’t gone over well, to say the least. Interracial marriages in that part of the UK in the 1970s…

They made it work. Her parents were in love, after all. They left their homes, cut off ties with their families, got married and laboured and did whatever jobs they needed to do and put themselves through school. Their lives were commendable. Hermione looked up to and admired her parents more than practically anyone else in the world (though Professor McGonagall followed closely behind).

Their lives hadn’t always been easy, and Hermione _certainly_ hadn’t made things any easier for them.

It was bad enough that she was a witch in a Muggle household; bad enough that she couldn’t _really_ talk to her parents about her school or her classes or her friends or what she was learning (because try as they might they just could never _really_ understand); bad enough that she couldn’t call home crying when things went bad, couldn’t ask her dad for help with her history homework or pick her mum’s brain about brewing potions. It was badd enough that her parents were forced to adapt to her new life with only really a letter of explanation (delivered by a strange man on her eleventh birthday saying that she was a _witch_ and had to study _magic_ with _wizards_ now). It was bad enough that her parents had to learn how to use owls to communicate with her, had to be dragged along on shopping trips with strange currency to purchase strange items from strange men and women in strange clothes. It was bad enough that she was a second-class citizen no matter where she seemed to find herself, couldn’t properly fit in any environment (too nerdy in primary school to make any friends, too driven and focused for her peers at Hogwarts to connect with; too white or too black to truly belong with either community; half-breed, half-caste, mulatto, Mudblood… she had heard it all, and it barely flustered her anymore).

But now with… with everything happening with Ginny she just…

It was hard enough. Her family had been through enough. Her parents had already had to deal with so much hatred, so much change, so much discrimination, so many _new_ things. She was an anomaly simply by existing, simply by the mixed color of her skin and the seemingly-impossible magic coursing through her veins, simply because of her ambition and her competitive streak and her tendency to act like a know-it-all, simply because of her abrasiveness, her _difference_.

She couldn’t have a _girlfriend_ on top of it all, fake or not.

(And, truthfully, it didn’t feel fake all of the time. But she did _not_ have the emotional capacity to think about _that_ right now.)

She couldn’t be… It wasn’t that there was anything _wrong_ with being gay or with girls liking girls, it just… she couldn’t do this, too. She couldn’t be different like this, as well.

It was too much.

It was all too much.

(She remembered the way Ginny’s skin felt warm and silky smooth underneath her fingers, remembered the way Ginny’s eyes shone bright when the firelight hit them, remembered the way her breath caught in her throat right before Hermione kissed her, remembered the way she blushed and bit her lip and tucked her hair behind her ear whenever Hermione caught her staring for too long…)

(It was too much.)

~~

Her parents got home twenty minutes after she had finally dragged her trunks upstairs and shepherded them away in her bedroom. Her mum had knocked on her door and softly invited her down for dinner, and Hermione had faked a sore throat to get out of talking.

(It would only buy her a day or two of continued silence, a day or two to come up with some kind of explanation or excuse, but she would take whatever she could get, at this point.)

Now, only a few short hours later, she was once again in her bedroom, a solitary lamp providing soft and warm light in the otherwise dark space, curtains drawn tight to block out the glow of streetlights from outside. She popped open her trunk, in desperate need of something to sleep in (just underwear was fine for a night or two — she made it work without her bags — but it was the middle of winter and she’d prefer, you know… _actual_ pyjamas).

When the lid of her trunk fell open, Hermione gasped.

Sitting on the very top of her neatly folded clothes, bright and unassuming, was the necklace, the gift from Ginny that she had taken off in a moment of dramatic flare the night before.

She picked it up reverently. The metal felt almost warm in her palm, as if it had only just been removed minutes before, and she turned it over and over and over between her fingers, tracing the design.

A flash of parchment caught her eye, and it was only then that Hermione noticed the small note folded closed and propped up inside the trunk. She had been so focused on the necklace that at first she hadn’t even seen it.

On the parchment was her name, written in black ink in Ginny’s familiar script, and seeing it made her lungs tight.

She bent and picked up the note with nervously shaking fingers.

She should have expected this; honestly she’s not sure _why_ she’s so surprised. Ginny doesn’t let things lie, Ginny doesn’t let things go, Ginny’s a fighter. Ginny’s one to reach out, if she thinks things are wrong. She forces conversation and discussion and communication. It’s sort of her thing. She holds grudges and stubbornly can’t let arguments drop unless she’s sure she’s won, and Hermione honestly shouldn’t be surprised that she’s sent a note back with her things.

(The fact that Ginny hadn’t shown up on her front porch, hadn’t appeared on a broomstick outside of her window, hadn’t immediately sent Errol with a foot-long note attached to his panting, gasping body, is really a testament to how much damage Hermione must have done.)

Hermione took a breath and opened the note.

It wasn’t even ten words, and yet somehow this was _everything_ to her. (She had read more books than she could even count, and yet none of those words held a candle to this one sentence written by the girl she couldn’t stop thinking about.)

 

_I don’t want this to be the end._

 

Hermione clutched the necklace to her chest, heart pounding and palms sweating, and she found that she was _immensely_ thankful for Ginny Weasley, for the fact that Ginny Weasley existed, for the fact that Ginny Weasley knew her so well.

She worried the chain between her fingers and took solace in its familiar shape.

She really _had_ regretted taking it off.

**

Ginny woke up unexpectedly, sweaty and uncomfortable, with tense muscles and a racing pulse.

Her dream was slipping from her mind already; with each passing second Ginny struggled harder and harder to recall even the most rudimentary details.

But this was nothing new. Ginny’s nightmares had always been more about feelings than images. Isolation, paranoia, betrayal, gripping fear, terror, pain and trauma and torment, darkness and muddy, blurry pictures… but then, you didn’t need a vivid story to have a nightmare. All that mattered, really, was the terror of it all.

And Ginny was familiar with terror.

(It sounded dramatic; she _knew_ it sounded dramatic. That’s why she never talked about it.)

But last night felt different. She had come to expect a certain kind of dream since arriving at Grimmauld Place _(a prisoner inside her own mind, unable to control her body, watching on with horror as her hands hurt, destroyed, mangled; long, dark tunnels that never ended; dungeons that echoed with the sound of dripping water and harsh breathing; a high, clear, piercing laugh; a voice that taunted her with her whispered name; the sound of scales sliding sickly along wet stone)_ but last night was different.

Ginny was used to dreams shrouded in mystery, used to dark and confusing images that felt more like distant memories than actual _dreams_. But last night…

It was fading already. She tried to grip onto the slipping memories, but it was pointless. Every time she blinked it became harder and harder to remember.

It had felt so _real_ …

Ginny sat up in bed. Soft early morning light fell across the floor from the one window in the room, and Ginny stared at the way it glinted off of the dust swirling in the air, her heart rate slowing down incrementally as reality started to fall back into place.

The dream was growing faint and distant, even now.

But _Merlin_ , it had felt real.

_(Brown eyes flashing, brow furrowing in anger as words whipped across Ginny’s skin like harsh December wind; the sinking feeling of helplessness, of rejection, of isolation and loss and grief; dark curly hair flashing through a vast forest; a scream, long and loud, echoing in a room Ginny couldn’t see as her fingers scraped and bled against cold, unyielding stone.)_

She turned to her right, and the bed next to her was as empty and as cold as it had been for the past three days.

She hated it.

It had only been a few days, but she had gotten _used_ to waking up to Hermione’s face on the pillow next to hers, young and relaxed in sleep; had gotten used to the feeling of Hermione’s hand soft on her hip as they drifted off; had gotten used to another person in bed next to her, sharing blankets and warmth and heath throughout the night. It had only been a few days, but she had gotten used to sharing a bed. She didn’t like sleeping alone.

(She knew, though, that it wasn’t _really_ the fact that she didn’t like sleeping alone — although with the frequency of her nightmares the past few weeks, that was certainly part of it. The truth of it all wasn’t that she missed sleeping with _someone_ , but that she missed the specific someone she used to sleep with. It wasn’t just a selfish and detached desire to share a bed with another warm body.)

(She missed Hermione.)

Ginny peered out the window, trying to judge the time simply by the light outside. It was early; the colours of the sky mixed together like a paint pallet, with the pink of sunrise bleeding into the dark blue of night. Birds chirped and sang, and the rumble of cars and taxis and voices that usually saturated the air was subdued and muffled due to the early hour.

It was early. Before 6, easily. Too early for her father to be up for work, too early for any of her brothers to have dragged themselves out of bed. Unconscionably early, in other words. _So_ early that on any other day Ginny would have simply thrown her covers over her head and rolled over and slept for another three or four hours.

But today wasn’t like any other day.

Because today, in the early hours of the morning, Ginny still felt the sting of Hermione’s absence, still felt the cold film of winter in every corner of the room, still felt the terrifying pressure from last night’s dream…

Sleep was sure to be impossible, at this point, so she might as well wake up and fix herself some coffee. The fact that no one else would be awake was only a bonus.

She’d been skipping family meals, recently; hadn’t been to a full one since the night Hermione left.

It was easier that way. It was easier to not deal with it, easier to avoid her mother all together, easier to not have to look at Ron’s smug face, easier to not have to deal with the crushing weight of the pitying looks on all her brothers’ faces.

It was easier to just avoid it all.

But she still had to eat. She wouldn’t eat _with_ everyone, not anymore, so she’s had to become creative. She’s snuck food out under her jumper, squirreled food away for a day, snuck into the kitchen late into the night after everyone else had gone to bed, and twice enlisted the help of Kreacher (he hadn’t brought her what she’d asked for, and both times it had been cold, and one time completely inedible, but all in all he had accomplished something at least _somewhat_ useful, so she couldn’t fault him too heavily).

Ginny thought that it must be too early for anyone else to be awake, so she felt comfortable slipping out of bed and traipsing her sock-clad feet down ice-cold stairs to make herself breakfast before her family rose. She hadn’t had a decent cup of coffee in almost three days (she rarely drank it at home, because Fred and George always gave her shit for drinking coffee like an American instead of tea like a proper English lady), and so the little victory of this early morning — despite how unfortunately it had begun — was well received.

Grimmauld Place was cold and silent at thishour. Winter chill seeped in through glass windows, and there was a slight draft wafting in from the chimney and from under doors, dampening the house’s usual musty coziness. Ginny rubbed her hands together, shoved them into the space between her arms and torso, and tried to sink further into her warm jumper.

The world wasn’t yet awake. Ginny reveled in the solitude, in the clean feeling of empty hallways and cavernous rooms. She didn’t like being lonely, but she often loved being alone. Even this somewhat-not-self-imposed isolation (not quite how Ginny pictured her holiday going, if she was being honest) wasn’t _entirely_ unwelcome. She could appreciate solitude, under the right circumstances.

Early winter mornings were her favourite time growing up in the Burrow. She loved waking up before the birds, sneaking out into the fields and racing off to their ice-covered pond, traipsing through new and pristine snow, dashing back in hours later with red cheeks and bright eyes, hair matted full of melted snow and shivering slightly, to a welcoming cup of her mum’s soup and a thick knitted blanket.

She sighed at the memory. She missed her home.

Grimmauld Place just wasn’t the same.

She passed through the dark parlour and slipped into the kitchen, freezing immediately in the doorway at the image which greeted her.

Her mum stood in the dim kitchen, hunched over the main counter, a brand new edition of _The Daily Prophet_ open in front of her, sipping from a steaming mug.

Ginny tried not to breathe, tried not to make any drastic or sudden movements. Her mum hadn’t noticed her yet. If she could just—

She took a step backwards, but her foot hit a loose floorboard and suddenly she was stuck in place, immobilized as her mother’s eyes leapt to meet hers at the unexpected sound of the groaning _creak_ the old wood made under her body’s weight.

It was obvious right away that Mrs. Weasley hadn’t been expecting anyone else to appear. Her hair was piled up on top of her head in an unkempt way that Ginny had rarely ever seen (her mum never went _anywhere_ if she was even slightly ‘unkempt’); she wore only her dressing gown and a pair of slippers; and as she clutched her chest she looked like Ginny’s sudden appearance in the doorway had nearly given her heart failure.

“Ginny!” Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, setting her mug down with a loud _thunk_ that forced pale brown liquid to slosh over the rim. She didn’t seem to notice.

Ginny stayed still in the doorway, like an animal about to take flight, testing her options.

(She could turn around and leave, stalk up the stairs and back into her bedroom and throw herself under her covers and pretend like she could possibly get any more sleep, today. Or, she could stay here and face a potentially dreadful — or dreadfully awkward — conversation with her mum, while also enjoying a hot cup of coffee that she felt like she desperately needed.)

She finally figured… well, she was here now. Her mum’s already seen her. Might as well.

She nodded once. “Morning.” (Just because she was angry didn’t mean she had to be a prat about it. She wasn’t _Ron_. She was avoiding her mother but she didn’t have to be _hostile_ towards her. Ginny knew where to draw the line.)

Mrs. Weasley looked frankly _dumbstruck_ by the fact that Ginny had addressed her at all. She must have been expecting stony silence.

(But Ginny wasn’t like her brother.)

Her mum cleared her throat, and Ginny leaned back against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest and eyes wary.

“Would you… I mean… tea?” She finally asked, gesturing lamely to the stove top. “I just put a pot on.”

Ginny nodded again. “Sure. Thanks.” She would have preferred coffee, but now that her mum was here and offering, she felt weird about turning her down.

Mrs. Weasley bustled away, busying herself with mugs and the kettle and milk, doing whatever she could to keep her back to Ginny. To give herself time, probably. To avoid the awkwardness she could undoubtedly feel pressing right on the edge of the silence.

Ginny honestly didn’t blame her.

Ginny, for her part, hoisted herself up, perching on the edge of the counter, feet dangling towards the floor and sock-clad heels knocking against the wooden cabinets.

When her mum finally turned around to hand her the steaming mug of tea, her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth as if to speak (surely to snap at Ginny, to admonish her, to tell her to knock it off and come down and behave like a civilized woman and not like an insolent child), but she said nothing. She just handed Ginny the tea with a quiet warning of: “Careful, it’s hot.”

Ginny’s eyebrows shot up. That was strange.

Their mum _never_ missed a chance to scold them for their rowdy or juvenile behavior.

For her not to say anything at this, Ginny’s clear provocation? For her not to make some crack about proper manners and dirty feet on the surface where they cooked their food?

Well… that certainly said something.

But Ginny, as unwilling to point out her mother’s strange behavior as her mother was to admonish her on hers, followed her mother’s lead. She sipped quietly on her tea and tried not to move around too much or make too much noise.

The silence, though tense and thick, was not necessarily uncomfortable. It wasn’t the kind of room Ginny would want to spend an afternoon in, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She could at least hang around and finish her tea.

And if they could get through the ten minutes it took for her to polish off her drink without screaming at each other, Ginny would chalk it up to a monumental victory.

(She wouldn’t be so lucky.)

They made it seven quiet minutes of silently going about their own unobtrusive business before Mrs. Weasley cleared her throat and spoke. “Ginny, I just…” Ginny looked up. “I wanted to…” Mrs. Weasley sighed. “Have you heard from Hermione?”

Ginny swallowed thickly. This is what she had been worried about. This is why she hadn’t… she didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to talk to her mother about this. She didn’t want this argument to continue and she _certainly_ didn’t want to have to explain herself to her mother yet again. So she put her mug down, cleared her throat, and said, with as disaffected a voice as she could muster, “You’ll be happy to know she isn’t speaking to me at the moment.”

She wasn’t looking at her, but Ginny could have _sworn_ that she _heard_ her mother frown. “I’m not… Ginny I’m not _happy_ to hear—”

“What, this isn’t what you wanted?” She spat, anger and annoyance getting the best of her despite her best efforts to control her pounding pulse. (She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to fight about this. Why couldn’t her mum just leave it all alone… why couldn’t _she_ just leave it all alone?)

“I… no, look… you’re young and Hermione is… I just thought… to warn you about…”

Ginny stared at her, incredulous. “You didn’t _warn_ me, Mum. You ambushed me and my girlfriend at a _party_ , in front of our _best friends_. That’s not a warning. That’s cruelty.”

Mrs. Weasley shook her head. “I never meant—”

“It doesn’t matter, anyways,” Ginny cut her off, leaping from the counter and striding across the kitchen to drop her mug into the empty sink. “We’ve broken up, haven’t we? Nothing more to worry about.”

“You’re heartbroken.” Her mum said it softly, as if the thought had never before occurred to her, as if the realization was only just now sinking in that what Ginny was feeling was more than just misplaced anger or a childish tantrum. That she was hurting, truly and deeply.

Ginny scoffed, shoulders tight and back firmly towards her mother. “Did you think I wouldn’t be?”

“It’s… I don’t know. You’re young. You haven’t been together all that—”

“I _love_ her, Mum,” Ginny said quietly, head bent low, eyes closed and fingers gripping the metal basin of the sink tightly. She hadn’t said the words out loud, yet — had barely even had the courage to think them to herself more than a few times — but as they slipped practically unprompted past her dry lips, she knew that they were true. She loved Hermione, and had loved her for quite some time now. She licked her lips and said again, “I love her. Did you not think of that?”

Where Ginny’s voice was quiet, her mother’s was loud. Where Ginny was resigned and defeated, her mother was energetic and defensive. “You’re sixteen!” Molly exclaimed. “You don’t know _what_ love is!”

Ginny whirled around then, bringing her face to face with her mother for the first time in several days. (Her mum looked exhausted and pale, with dark bags under her eyes like she hadn’t been sleeping, but Ginny chose to ignore that, chose to ignore the fact that _she_ probably looked almost exactly the same.) “You and dad were in love when _you_ were sixteen!” She shot back.

“That…” Mrs. Weasley sputtered and turned red. “That was _different_.”

“Why? _Why_ was it different? Because he was a man and you were a woman?”

“Of _course_ not, Ginny. It’s because… because we… we weren’t in the middle of a war! And we… we had known each other for years, and—”

“I’ve known Hermione since I was _ten_ , Mum,” Ginny fought. “I’ve known her for six years! And it shouldn’t _matter_ if we’re dating or not, because she’s my _best friend_ and I love her. I love her _without_ being in love with her. And you hurt her and you made her feel unwelcome here, and whatever thoughts or opinions you might have had about my relationship, you should _never_ have done that to her.” Mrs. Weasley swallowed thickly and looked away, eyes downcast on her knuckles. “And now she won’t speak to me and she never even… I never even got to _tell_ her that…” Ginny’s voice cut out abruptly, stifled by a thickness in her throat that she didn’t want to pay attention to (she would _not_ cry about this again).

Her mother’s face had crumpled into nothing, the epitome of despair. “Ginny, I never meant for… I didn’t _know_.”

“You didn’t ask,” Ginny snapped. It was quiet between them for many long moments, the silence growing stronger and tenser with each passing second. A large grandfather clock somewhere out in the parlor could be heard, _tick tick ticking_ as each still second passed.

Finally, when she couldn’t stomach looking at her mother any longer, Ginny wiped at her eyes. “Thanks for the tea,” she grumbled.

She shot off, disappearing up the steps before her mum could even begin to form words in response. (Ginny thought that she probably would have had a hard time coming up with anything to say anyway.)

For the remainder of her break she confined her food-scouting missions to either late at night, after everyone was already in bed, or else times when she knew her mother would be gone from the house.

Harry snuck her a scone every morning and didn’t press her for details.

She was thankful for him.

**

It had been days, days of silence and dodging questions and lack of communication with her parents, and Hermione knew that she had to face the music eventually. She could only avoid confrontation for so long.

She sat at the kitchen table and fidgeted nervously with her hands. It was late on Saturday morning; her dad had just finished checking the post and her mum still had her pyjamas on. Their dirty breakfast dishes still littered the table, and Hermione bit her lip as she stared down at her plate full of rapidly-cooling eggs. She hadn’t had much of an appetite, recently, and her breakfast — like so many breakfasts before it — had gone almost entirely untouched.

Mr. Granger cleared his throat and folded his newspaper noisily, smacking his lips as he addressed his family. “Well, lovely breakfast, but I’m afraid I’ve got to dash.” He stood from the table and made to grab both his and his wife’s bowls, but Hermione reached out a hand and grabbed his wrist before he could do more than lean across the table.

“Sorry, can you just… could you wait a bit, Dad?”

He looked at her, head tilted and brow furrowed in a mixture of moderate confusion and worry. “What’s wrong, Hermione?” He asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing’s wrong I just… I was wondering if I could talk to the pair of you.”

Mr. and Mrs. Granger exchanged a look that Hermione couldn’t quite decipher, but he lowered himself back into his seat nonetheless.

Her mum set down her coffee and folded her hands in her lap. “So what’s on your mind, love?”

Hermione sighed and closed her eyes. “I have something I need to tell you. And I don’t… I’m not sure if you’ll be happy about it,” she said.

Her parents exchanged another heavy, loaded look. “Why don’t you think we’ll be happy about it?” Her mum questioned.

Hermione shook her head. “It’s not really that, I just… I’m not sure what you’re going to say.”

“Well, what do you think we’ll say?”

Hermione sighed and fought the urge to roll her eyes. Her parents always did this. Her mum was of the academic disposition that you always had to ask questions anytime someone expressed uncertainty, so that you could get to the “root of their mistrust;” that you always had to pose question after difficult question to your students until they finally came up with the answer themselves, instead of leaning on you as a crutch. On a normal day it wouldn’t really bother her, but today she just really wanted to say her piece and be done with it. “I’m really not looking for a mental workaround right now, Mum,” Hermione said, trying as hard as she could to hide the exasperation in her voice. “I kind of just want to tell you before I lose the nerve.”

Mr. Granger cleared his throat and leaned across the table, asking in a quiet, nervous voice, “Are you in trouble? Are you… you aren’t _pregnant_ , are you?”

Hermione balked. “ _What_? No. Dad no I’m not… _no_.”

“Well…” Her parents exchanged a look, and it struck Hermione then that they must have been discussing this amongst themselves for quite a few days, must have run over and over potential scenarios as to their daughter’s sudden reappearance and subsequent emotional withdrawal. She wasn’t sure if that was a relieving thought or a terrifying one. “It’s just… you came back so _suddenly_ ,” her mum said.

“And you’ve been hiding in your room for days, not talking to either of us,” her dad supplied.

“And, well… your father and I know that things with Ron haven’t been… _perfect_.”

“That’s an understatement,” Hermione muttered. She shook her head and refocused her attention. “But no, I’m not… no we never… _I’ve_ never… I’m not pregnant. Sort of the opposite, actually.”

Her mum quirked her head. “So it _is_ romantic, whatever this thing is that’s been bothering you? Something to do with Harry, maybe?”

This time Hermione really _did_ roll her eyes. “I’ve _told_ you that we’re just friends.”

“Okay, okay, so not Harry. But romantic problems, yes?”

Hermione swallowed. “Yes, romantic problems.”

Her mum smiled — clearly relieved at the revelation that her only daughter was _not_ about to become another statistic on teen pregnancy — and said, “So, tell us about your boy troubles.”

Hermione shook her head, beginning to feel a little frustrated (a little like she was moving in continuous circles). “No it isn’t… it’s not _boy_ troubles.”

Her mum frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t—”

“There’s a girl.”

Silence rang out, thick and heavy in the hot air of the kitchen.

Hermione didn’t move, she didn’t even breathe. She was too afraid to even look her parents in the eye, so she kept her gaze trained on the wood grain of the table and tried not to let her nerves show on her face or in the tremble of her hands.

~~

_They were a quiet family, the Grangers. Quiet and reserved and all about academics and studying, all about hard work and perseverance; all about control._

_Her parents spent their entire lives dealing with hatred, dealing with prejudice, dealing with changes and challenges and fighting and fighting and fighting (no one could accuse them of being anything but cool-under-pressure)._

_But it felt like_ all _Hermione did was bring them more difficulties, more things to worry about, more things to adapt to and fix and talk about in hushed whispers late at night when they thought she was asleep. No matter what she did, it felt like just another issue, another problem, another_ Thing _that she was laying onto her parents’ already weighed-down shoulders._

_She couldn’t make friends in primary school; she never got invited to birthday parties until year 4 (and only then because parents started forcing kids to invite everyone in their class); bullies who picked on her would find themselves often the victims of missing homework, improperly tied shoes, or constantly-breaking markers (her parents were called into so many conferences with her headmasters in her early school years that they seriously considered sending her off to some strict academy overseas — France, perhaps — to discipline her); her hair was too bushy and she didn’t know how to tame it, her teeth were too large for her small frame and other children teased her for it; she ate every school lunch alone until she got to Hogwarts._

_She was a_ witch _, for Christ’s sake. She went to a_ magic school _in_ Scotland _where she learned_ magic _, where she fought_ dragons _and was_ captured by mermaids _, where_ giant snakes _lived in the castle pipes, where_ centaurs _and_ unicorns _(things she thought only existed in fairy books) roamed the forest._

 _Her life was unbelievable. Literally, she_ could not believe it _sometimes._

_She could not believe she was doing this to her parents._

Again _._

_(She remembered the way Ginny laughed when she was fresh off of the pitch, wind-swept and happy and smelling of freshly mown grass and cold air, broomstick tucked under her arm; she remembered the way it felt to dance in Ginny’s arms at Slughorn’s Christmas party, a little drunk on stolen alcohol and the wafting smell of Ginny’s perfume where her nose pressed into her neck; she remembered the way Ginny looked at her, eyes bright and hurt outside in the snow as the New Year rang in around them.)_

_She could do this. It was Ginny, after all._

_She was worth it._

~~

“There’s a girl.” Hermione watched the surprise slip onto her parents’ faces. Her father slumped back into his chair, while her mother’s instinct was exactly opposite — she leaned forwards, bringing her hands up to meet Hermione’s on the kitchen table.

“A girl?” She asked, quietly.

Hermione nodded. “We were… we had something. But… I don’t know, I think I messed it all up… or at least, I _let_ it get messed up. And now we aren’t talking and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Does this have anything to do with why you came back from the Weasley’s early?” Her mum asked.

“Hold up now,” her dad interjected quickly, “can we go back to the part where you said there’s a _girl_? What girl? Who is she? Why… when did this… but you’re so _young_.”

“I’m seventeen, Dad,” Hermione half-whispered.

“You’re young enough.” He shook his head and took a few deep breaths. “It’s… this is all part of the witch thing, isn’t it? Not enough for them to just teach you _magic_ , they have to go and make you a… a… _you know_.”

“Oh David shush,” her mother snapped, even as Hermione’s face coloured with shame and she blinked a few rapid times in an attempt to dispel her tears. “She told us. That’s what matters.”

“I’m just saying, there was no hint of any of this in either one of our families before all this magic business started.”

“It doesn’t matter when or how it started, the point is this is where we are. So we’re going to deal with it and we’re going to help Hermione however we can.”

Hermione closed her eyes and buried her head in her hands, elbows propped onto the table.

Her father grumbled. “I have to go,” he said, standing from the table, his chair scraping aggressively against the linoleum floor. “I’m late to meet Bill.”

“ _David_ ,” Mrs. Granger implored, but he didn’t listen. Hermione heard (but did not watch) him grab his coat and keys and stalk out the door, closing it behind him with a loud _slam_ that shook the lights inside of their fixtures.

The silence of the house was deafening in his absence.

“Look,” Hermione spoke, head still in her hands and voice muffled, “I know that… I know I haven’t made things _easy_ for you. And I–I’ve tried really _really_ hard to make things as ea–easy as possible.” She brought her head up and wiped furiously at her eyes, throat thick with tears and trying to stop the shaking in her voice. “I know how hard it is with how di–different I am and I’m _sorry_ and I wi–wish that there was something I could do to make it better but I… I didn’t _ask_ for this anymore than you did. And I kn-know how hard the both of you work to be okay with everything that I am and I’m _sorry_ that I have to ask you to be okay with one more thing.”

“Hermione, love, of _course_ we’re okay with it,” her mother soothed, pulling her chair further into the table and leaning over it so that she was that much closer to her daughter. “Your father is… he doesn’t do well with change. It’s an adjustment. But he’ll be fine.”

Hermione shook her head, eyes trained on her fingers. “I’m not even sure there’s anything to adjust _to_.”

“Not your mystery girl?”

“Well I’m not even sure that th-there’s anything _there_ , anymore. I may have messed it all up.”

“How so?”

Hermione shook her head and grumbled, “She kissed me and I disapparated.”

“Is that that thing you do where you disappear in one place and reappear somewhere else?” Hermione nodded. Her mother whistled, long and low. “That is quite a reaction.”

“I was scared, is all. We hadn’t really… we had never talked about it and I didn’t know what to do and something _really_ dreadful had just happened and I just wanted to leave…”

Her mum leaned across the table and asked, in a low and conspiratorial voice, “Just so we’re clear… we _are_ talking about Ginny, right?”

Hermione coloured. “ _Yes_ , we’re talking about Ginny. Obviously we’re talking about Ginny.”

Her mum raised her hands in mock surrender. “I just wanted to check. Didn’t want to make any assumptions about anything.” It was quiet for a few seconds. “From what I’ve heard,” Mrs. Granger continued softly, “she is a very lovely girl. You talk about her constantly.”

Hermione flushed. “Do I?”

Her mum nodded. “You do. She must be very special.”

Hermione stared down at her hands. “Mum do you… Do you think I’ve messed it all up?”

Her mother paused for a moment and tilted her head, pondering. “I think… I think you’re both very young and probably very confused. I think some things probably happened that you didn’t know how to deal with and weren’t totally proud of. But I think… I think that, once you know exactly what you want, you should do your best to communicate that to her.”

Hermione shook her head. “But what if I can’t? What if I don’t know what I want? What if I do figure it out and she won’t let me tell her? What if it’s just… too hard?”

“Life is hard, love,” Mrs. Granger said, taking Hermione’s hands in her cool grip, voice even and soft. “And love is harder. It’s never really been an easy thing.” She stroked the back of Hermione’s hands with her thumbs. “But nothing in your life has ever come easy to you; you’ve had to work for every single thing that you’ve got. And it hasn’t been easy, but you’re a fighter, Hermione. You’re like me, in that regard.” She smiled a smile with brilliantly white teeth. “If Ginny means that much to you, then I have no doubt that you’ll be able to figure it out. You always do, don’t you?”

“I always do,” Hermione acknowledged softly.

She could do this. She could. She just needed to sit down and think it through and reason it out like she always did with every problem she had ever encountered.

She could do this. She could.

It was Ginny, after all.

She was worth it.

**


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Her return to school had only really served to highlight how pale she was — her freckles had faded to next-to-nothing and she was slightly thinner than was strictly healthy for her stature._
> 
> _She breathed the harsh winter air like an extraordinary reprieve; like a woman who had been imprisoned for years and was now finally free._
> 
> _The sun — weak as it was — felt an incredible relief on her deprived skin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know how long you all have been waiting for this update. I know that I make you wait forever for updates on this story. And I know that this is probably the hardest story to wait for, of all of my unfinished works, because there are very few Ginny/Hermione fics in the HP f/f fandom. So thank you for sticking with me, for reading, and for leaving the nicest comments I’ve ever read. The response to this story has honestly blown me away.
> 
> So, here you go. Chapter 6.
> 
> If you want to dish or talk/yell at me, feel free to follow me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/). Comments + messages literally make my entire life, I read every single one and they all make me die a little on the inside.

**

A knocking on her door was the only warning Ginny received before it was pushed open, a head of fiery red hair peeking around the frame.

George grinned when he saw her sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, flipping aimlessly through one of the Quidditch magazines she had managed to nick from Ron’s stash. “Hiya, Ginny,” he said, pushing himself forward and into her bedroom.

Ginny eyed her brother carefully. Usually when Fred or George appeared in one of their rooms it ended with someone having to consume something that inevitably made them ill. (Ginny and Ron were the earliest testers for the Skiving Snackboxes that the twins now peddled. And they couldn’t even toss her a few galleons of compensation to make up for the dozens of nosebleeds she had had to endure in the name of a ‘good joke.’ Those pricks. Without her there wouldn’t _be_ any Skiving Snackboxes.)

“What are you after, then?” She asked George, head cocked and arms folded over her chest.

He raised his hands defensively. “Hey now, why d’you assume I’m after something?”

“Because you’re my brother and I’ve known you sixteen years.”

He pursed his lips. “Well, that’s a fair point there. Can’t argue that.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “So. What are you after?”

“I’m honestly not after anything.” He shook his head. “I just… I heard your fight with Mum.” Ginny stiffened where she sat, bringing her shoulders up and forcing her back ramrod straight. George, if he noticed his sister’s sudden discomfort, made no mention and continued on: “Just wanted to check on you.”

“Well, you’ve checked,” Ginny said curtly, trying to be as dismissive as possible. She turned her attention back to the pages in front of her. “You can fuck off now.”

George raised his eyebrows and whistled lowly. “My my, you’re a bloody _joy_ to be around, aren’t you? Giving Ron a run for his money.”

Ginny rolled her eyes and shifted on the bed, turning her back on him. “Not now, George. I’m busy.”

“Yes, riveting stuff you’ve got there. What is that, three months old? How will you _ever_ keep up to date on all the Quidditch gossip, I just can’t _imagine_ —”

“If you’ve come here just to bother me, congratulations, you’ve succeeded. Joke landed. I’m annoyed.” She nodded her head towards the door. “So, again: please fuck off.”

George sighed and took a step forwards. “Come to the joke shop with me.”

“What?” Ginny asked, bringing her head up. She fought the urge to scoff incredulously.

“C’mon,” he implored. “Come keep me and Fred company.”

“I don’t think Mum or Dad would be very happy with that. Running off to the heart of London unsupervised and all. You know there’s a war on?”

“Eh,” he shrugged, “who cares? You’ve gone stir-crazy in here. Get out and breathe some fresh air, for a minute.”

“So _you’re_ going to tell our parents that you’re sneaking me off?”

He shrugged. “I figure, since you’ve spent the past few days not leaving your bedroom and all, they won’t exactly _notice_ if you pop out for a few hours, will they?”

Well. He certainly had a point there.

She still hesitated where she sat.

George shook his head and reached a hand out towards her. “It’ll do you some good to get out of here, Gin. This house is poison.”

Ginny looked around her bedroom. The dark corners were still caked in dust; a spider web stretched from the shade of one of the old lamps to the wall fixture behind it; the bed creaked whenever she shifted her weight; and the pillows always managed to smell a little damp, no matter how often she cleaned them.

(The blankets smelled like Hermione, though. That bit hadn’t changed.)

Ginny took a deep breath, met her brother’s eyes, and reached her hand out to take his.

A yanking sensation just below her navel, and then crushing darkness swallowed her whole.

~~

It surprised her more than it likely should have that Fred and George’s business was booming. Especially since Diagon Alley itself seemed to be on the verge of collapse. The streets were dark and dingy, even in the bright, early afternoon sun. There were a few shoppers milling about, bundled up in their winter clothes, but not many. About a sixth of the shops were dark; either closed for the day or boarded up completely, Ginny couldn’t be quite sure.

Ginny had never really been here during the off-season, during the time when the streets weren’t flooded with students in a mad dash to buy their school supplies before term started. Because of that, she wasn’t sure if this level of activity was normal for this time of year or something newer, more sinister. Either way, she’d not seen it ever looking so deserted.

It was… odd. Ghostly, almost. Uncanny. Somehow familiar and yet disturbingly, shockingly _unfamiliar_.

She trailed along after George, sticking close to his elbow, feeling rather like a small child following her father through a dense crowd.

But there was no crowd. The streets were almost empty.

“It’s…” She started to speak, but trailed off, unsure of how to vocalize her thinking.

“Weird, right?” George asked, speaking over his shoulder.

Ginny nodded. “I didn’t expect it to look like this.”

“It doesn’t always.”

“You think… because it’s still so close to the holiday?”

George shook his head. “I don’t, no.”

Ginny fell silent.

Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes dominated the landscape around it. Shining bright orange in the midst of the dreary street, with the likeness of one of the twins mounted outside the door — a giant floating head tipping its hat with an ever-present cheeky grin — it was almost like looking at an oasis. It emanated warm light, and Ginny could hear the sounds of shrieking laughter even from where she stood outside.

The shop itself was packed. Children and adults alike flooded the floor, lined up around counters, pushed past each other to get up the stairs.

The ceiling was constantly illuminated by a supply of never-ending fireworks exploding in multi-coloured glory. The shelves were lined with products, most of which Ginny was intimately familiar with. The Skiving Snackboxes were clearly the best sellers, but there also seemed to be high demand for Puking Pastilles, Extendable Ears, Decoy Detonators, and the aptly named U-No-Poo pills. The Pygmy Puff station was easy to spot because of the crowd of pre-teen girls huddled around the balls of fluff, squealing with joy. Sneakoscopes whirred in the corner, surrounded by all of the jokes and tricks and deception. Bombastic Bombs and Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder stood on a black, menacing shelf next to the innocuous Muggle Magic Tricks.

Ginny turned to her brother, an honest grin spreading across her cheeks. “Business seems to be holding steady,” she noted.

“You sound surprised, Gin,” George said, even as he shook hands with a few of the more enthusiastic patrons. “Did you doubt our enterprising abilities?”

“I trusted Fred. You, on the other hand…”

George’s head tipped back with the force of his laugh.

Ginny smiled too, and it wasn’t even a little strained.

~~

Helping Fred and George with the shop served its main purpose: it distracted the hell out of her.

There was so much to do, and not a single free moment. Customers needed to be rung up and children needed to be warned away from the more dangerous items. Shelves needed to be restocked, strange requests needed to be dug out of the storage room, and through it all Ginny had to watch where she stepped to make sure she didn’t squash an errant Pygmy Puff, crunch some sort of toy, or accidentally knock a child into a shelf of WonderWitch products.

It was well past 3 by the time Ginny stopped to grab a sandwich from the kitchen tucked into the back of the shop.

She set herself down heavily into one of the few chairs, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes.

She heard her brother approach before he spoke any words, so the announcing of his presence didn’t startle her in the slightest.

“Quitting on me already, Ginny?” Fred asked from somewhere behind her.

Ginny made a rude hand gesture without opening her eyes.

Fred laughed. “Star athlete like you can’t keep up with one day working in a shop?”

“I will never understand how you two do this. It’s exhausting.”

“Well we’re doing what we love. It’s hard but it’s what we want to be doing. So we don’t have any trouble.”

She tilted her head back, squinting at him upside-down. “Poetic.”

“I try.” He came around to the front of her seat, claiming one of the chairs opposite. He sat down and kicked his feet up onto the table, the garish magenta robes he wore swishing open behind him. He tilted his head at her. “So. Your row with Mum?”

She squinted at him. “George already tried this. So I’m giving you the same answer: I don’t really wanna talk about it, Fred.”

“Look, if anyone knows about rows with Mum, it’s me and George. We’re old pros at it. No one’s been reprimanded more. We can really help you out with all of this.”

Ginny sighed and closed her eyes again. “Strangely, not making me feel better.”

Fred made a noise in the back of his throat. It was silent between them for a few moments. “Well, if you ever want a job here you’re welcome to one. You’re a very hard worker and we could get away with paying you far less than you deserve.”

Ginny laughed in spite of herself. “A tempting offer, but I think Mum would have heart failure if any more of us decided not to finish school.”

Fred nodded solemnly. “Yes, right you are. Well after school, maybe. I’ll even throw in some love potions free of charge to sweeten the deal. Help you get the girl back?”

Ginny’s eyes flashed, hard and cold and no longer teasing. “I’m not interested in your love potions, Fred,” she snapped.

Fred cleared his throat and straightened his robes. “Ah, yes. Thought that one might have been in poor taste.” Ginny made as if to stand but Fred reached a hand out and grabbed her arm, stopping her from rising. Ginny froze and looked at him. His expression was serious, and when he spoke his words were measured and calm. “I’m sorry for saying that. It was rude, and I didn’t come here to rib you. I just wanted to say… You’ll be alright, Gin. You always are.”

She smiled in spite of herself, marveled at the way Fred managed to make her reluctantly happy even though the only thing her mouth wanted to do was turn down in a pained grimace. The corners of her lips trembled, fighting her for dominance, but she managed to keep the somewhat-cheerful expression on her face. “Thanks, Fred.”

Fred shook his head. “No I mean it,” he said, and his voice was even and serious and sure. It was one of the few times Ginny had ever heard him speak without cracking some kind of joke or slipping in some sort of double entendre. It was shocking, and not totally comfortable, and Ginny wasn’t sure if she liked it. “You’re one tough nut, you are. And, if I’m being honest… you’ve always been the strongest one of us.” Ginny blinked and felt the sudden and ridiculous urge to cry. She fought it down, refusing to let her eyes even water. “Don’t tell Charlie I said that, though,” Fred added a few moments later with a sly wink.

She laughed and fell back into her vacated chair. Fred swung his seat around and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and rubbed her upper arm with his sure, strong hands. “You’ll be alright,” he whispered, “I know you will.”

Ginny let herself sink more deeply into the space under his arm.

She was strong. She was a Weasley.

She would be okay.

**

When the day arrived to return to Hogwarts, Ginny stuck close by Harry’s elbow and kept her eyes mostly downturned. There was a not-insignificant part of her that was desperate to see Hermione, but another slightly-larger part of her that was absolutely petrified of what that might entail.

She decided to keep her head down, allowing Harry to guide her towards the train.

Her mum and dad wrapped each of them in tight hugs one by one, and Fred and George spent a considerable amount of time shaking both Harry and Ron’s hands in equal measure.

Her dad embraced her tightly for many long seconds. When he pulled away it was with a swift kiss to the crown of her head and a pat on the cheek.

She hugged her mum, too. Ginny might be able to hold a grudge like a pro, but she wasn’t heartless. She hugged her mum.

When Molly let go it was with tears in her eyes and a trembling lip. Ginny pretended like she didn’t notice.

They were a quiet party boarding the train.

Ginny moved with purpose but mostly without speaking, her eyes scanning compartment after compartment for Luna and maybe Neville. Each window provided its own thrilling jolt of anxiety as her eyes skimmed the energetic forms inside. Like a mystery box on Christmas, any one of them might house: (1) her friends; (2) Malfoy and his squad of goons; or (3) Hermione.

Each compartment held rowdy students eagerly discussing their breaks, trading letters and stories, exchanging hugs, and tossing sweets back and forth. Looking inside was like a snapshot into another world.

Ginny kept her jaw clenched and her mind focused on her mission.

At once, a door opened to her right and Ginny almost ran straight into Cormac McLaggen. He looked down at her, startled for only a moment before a grin overtook his features.

Ginny couldn’t stop the disgusted noise that worked its way out from between her clenched teeth.

“Oy, where you off to in such a hurry, Weasley?” He asked, bracing his arm on the wall opposite, effectively blocking the entire corridor. “Why don’t you grab your girlfriend and come sit with me?”

“Not now, McLaggen,” Ginny growled, eying the space between his side and the wall. She wondered if she could slip through the gap, wondered if maybe one well-placed kick to the shins would effectively cripple McLaggen long enough for her to get by him.

She felt the presence of Harry behind her acutely.

“Shove off, Cormac,” Harry said, taking one step closer to her and puffing up his chest to try and make himself look bigger. (One could describe Harry Potter in many ways, but ‘large’ was certainly not one of them. Cormac had several inches and more than three stone on Harry.)

“Wasn’t talking to you, Potter,” McLaggen responded, his gaze still firmly fixed to Ginny’s face.

She growled again and reached into her jacket pocket. Her fingers tightened around her wand, feeling its smooth and comforting texture, but the compartment to her left clattered open before she could so much as think of an appropriate hex.

At 6’3”, Dean Thomas easily towered over almost every member of Gryffindor House. When he stepped out of his compartment, his eyes steel and shoulders drawn back, Ginny saw Cormac stiffen in front of her.

“There a problem here?” He asked, his words lazy and relaxed even as his body was drawn and tense. His gaze flicked to meet Ginny’s. “Y’alright, Gin?”

Ginny nodded. “M’fine Dean, thanks.”

Dean made a noise of understanding. He turned to Cormac. “Y’might wanna head back to your compartment, mate. We’re good here.”

Cormac glared and flexed his fingers. His eyes narrowed, clearly debating the merits of continuing this confrontation.

He seemed to decide it wasn’t worth it.

“Catch you later, Weasley,” he sneered before slinking back off into his compartment. The door clicked shut behind him and Ginny relaxed.

“Are you actually alright, Ginny?” Dean asked in a quiet voice. “McLaggen can be a real prick sometimes.”

Ginny smiled at him, grateful. “Yeah, Dean. M’alright.”

He nodded and returned her smile. “Good. Glad to hear it.” He next turned to Harry and held out his hand. “Good to see you, Harry. Nice break?”

Harry gripped Dean’s forearm in greeting. “Yeah, it was pretty good. Quiet. Yourself?”

“Can’t complain.” He glanced behind him. “I’m in with Parvati. If you’re looking for someplace to sit?”

Ginny shook her head. “That’s alright, Dean. I’m after Neville and Luna. Thanks though.”

“Sure, sure. Well… if you need anything, you know where to find me.”

“Will do, Dean,” Harry said, adjusting his bag further up his shoulder, “thanks again.”

He disappeared behind the same door he had emerged from.

The whole interaction had been under five minutes. The train hadn’t even started to move yet.

“Bizarre turn of events, don’t you think?” Ginny called to Harry over her shoulder, already moving off down the train again.

When Harry didn’t respond, Ginny turned back to him. He stood behind her, shifting sheepishly on his feet. Ron was nowhere to be found (probably off to find Lavender). Ginny hadn’t even noticed him leave.

“Sorry, Gin,” Harry said, “but… I think Hermione’s somewhere back there,” he pointed over his shoulder and Ginny’s heart leapt wildly. She tried to keep her expression neutral. “And I really think… I think I should probably…”

She understood. She wasn’t angry at him.

Hermione had few friends, beyond Harry and Ron. She _knew_ people, of course. But what with the whole Ron situation, and how incredibly awkward it must be to live with Lavender and the rest of their roommates, and with Ginny on her own hunt to find Neville and Luna, Hermione probably had no option beyond being somewhere by herself.

Harry knew this, too. He wouldn’t let her ride all the way to Scotland without someone to talk to.

She probably needed him more.

Ginny understood what he was saying. She wasn’t angry at him. She _was_ a little hurt, though. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to a train ride without him, without Ron, without Hermione. A ride with just Neville and Luna…

The entire trip with only Neville and Luna. What a thought.

She nodded and wished him well. He turned and made to walk in the other direction, while Ginny continued down the aisle. It only took her a few more compartments to spot the tell-tale shock of blonde hair that adorned her friend’s head.

She slipped inside and smiled at Luna and Neville.

They greeted her warmly and didn’t ask her any questions. She wasn’t sure who had warned them, who had informed them of her situation with Hermione, but they must have known, because they didn’t ask her any questions. She wasn’t sure who would have given them a heads-up (unless news of her breakup had already spread through the gossip mills at Hogwarts, which would be…  certainly possible, but less than ideal) but she was endlessly thankful that she didn’t have to spend an awkward twenty minutes explaining everything to them.

Instead, Luna just started in on a story about chasing some magical creature Ginny had never heard of across the Irish countryside over the holiday, while Neville brightly displayed a few new Herbology books his grandmother had given him for Christmas.

Ginny listened attentively to their stories, and they didn’t ask her to speak very much, and she was very thankful.

Ginny sat with Neville and Luna, her head on Neville’s shoulder and her hand in Luna’s for most of the ride.

She thought about Hermione, several cars away, and felt a little like crying.

She didn’t cry.

(Hermione, sitting several cars away with her feet on Harry’s lap and her head pressed to the cold window, didn’t cry either.)

**

At dinner time, she avoided the Great Hall. Not because she was being petty, or childish. Not because she was being a coward. Just because she wasn’t very hungry and she wanted to get a leg up on unpacking her belongings before start of term the next morning. That was all. No other reason for it.

Definitely not because she was worried about seeing Hermione. Definitely not because her note — scribbled hurriedly and left on a whim in Hermione’s trunk — had gone unanswered. Definitely not because she didn’t want her first time seeing Hermione again to be with an audience of several hundred nosy, cruel, and probing students. Definitely not because she wasn’t sure what she should say to the other girl. Definitely not because she wasn’t sure what would be worse: Hermione smiling at her politely and engaging in conversation like nothing was wrong, or Hermione ignoring her completely in favor of food and her other friends.

Definitely not.

(She was a coward. First Weasley in a generation to be an honest-to-Merlin coward.)

**

The first time Ginny emerged from the castle was the next morning, and she was alone.

She made her way to the greenhouses, bookbag packed full of textbooks, ink, parchment, and quills. Her feet crunched against the frosty ground and she felt the sudden urge to kick off her boots and dig her toes into hard and unyielding soil. Just to see if she could.

Her return to school had only really served to highlight how pale she was — her freckles had faded to next-to-nothing and she was slightly thinner than was strictly healthy for her stature.

She breathed the harsh winter air like an extraordinary reprieve; like a woman who had been imprisoned for years and was now finally free.

The sun — weak as it was — felt an incredible relief on her deprived skin.

She longed for her broom.

**

It was three weeks before Hermione started to really notice that Ginny was successfully avoiding her like the plague. An impressive feat, considering they lived in the same part of the castle, shared many of the same friends, and ate their meals in the same place at roughly the same time.

Hermione wasn’t sure quite how Ginny was pulling it off. She briefly suspected the other girl might have nicked Harry’s invisibility cloak, but she she quickly dismissed the notion as absurd. Even Ginny wouldn’t go that far.

The first week, Hermione thought that maybe they were just missing each other. She was spending a lot of time with Harry, a lot of time in the Library. And Ginny would be busy, what with Quidditch practices starting again and OWLs fast approaching. Maybe they were just missing each other.

By the second week, Hermione was growing increasingly confused. It just didn’t seem possible that Ginny happened to be none of the same places as her. It was ridiculous. They shared a Common Room. They were part of the same House. The castle wasn’t _that_ big.

By week three, Hermione was miffed. News of their breakup — ‘ _breakup’_ — had spread throughout the student body. Whispers and long looks followed Hermione wherever she went. It seemed nothing so exciting had every happened in the history of Hogwarts, if the fervor of stories was anything to go by.

It was annoying, to say the least. But not as annoying as hunting down an errant Ginny Weasley.

Hermione thought she had seen her in the hallways, once, turning the corner right outside a third floor classroom. But when Hermione called her name, the flash of read hair disappeared around the bend. By the time Hermione had dashed off and rounded the corner herself, Ginny was nowhere to be seen.

She tried her room in the girls’ dorms three times. But each time she knocked, the Fifth Year girl who answered shook her head and told Hermione: “She’s down on the pitch, I think;” or: “I haven’t seen her since breakfast;” or: “I thought she was in the Library.” Ginny was either never in her own room, not even for bed, or else she had very loyal accomplices in her roommates.

Twice Hermione tried to ambush her after Quidditch practice. The first time, she got sidetracked talking to Harry and Ginny must have slipped by her unseen, because by the time most of the team had filtered out of the tent and Hermione had poked her head inside, Ginny was gone. The second time, Ginny was “in the showers” for so long that Hermione thought she must have surely drowned. By the time nearly an hour had passed, Hermione sighed and turned around, giving up.

Truthfully, she didn’t know what she was going to do when she finally _did_ see Ginny again. She hadn’t really thought that far ahead. But they _would_ have to see each other _eventually_. There was no way around it. Just prolonging the inevitable would only succeed in making their future conversations strained and stilted.

At the root of it all, Hermione couldn’t understand why Ginny would want to avoid her. What possible purpose could that have? Sure, when they parted last things had been… a little tense. But the whole point of this ludicrous fake-dating charade was to tick off Ginny’s brother, break up in a few months, and maintain their friendship like nothing had ever happened.

It didn’t go down quite how either one of them expected, but the basis of the plan had remained intact. They ‘dated’ for a stretch of time, ‘broke up’, and now… now they weren’t even talking?

Hermione desperately wanted to talk to Ginny. She had thought of little else since her conversation with her mother, since picking apart her own feelings. She had turned topics over and over in her head, trying to find the right words, for weeks now.

_Hi, Gin. I think we need to talk about what happened between us._

_Ginny, hi, yes. Remember when you kissed me? Do you think we could do that more often?_

_Hi, Ginny. I’ve recently begun to question my sexuality. Thoughts?_

_I think pretending to date you made me start falling in love with you. I hope you might be feeling the same?_

She hadn’t quite worked out what to say, yet. But she knew she needed to talk to Ginny. They _had_ to talk.

She just couldn’t seem to _find_ her.

**

Ginny was avoiding Hermione. Like a goddamn coward.

She was ashamed. She was embarrassed. She had revealed too much of herself, had tipped her hand too early, had kissed Hermione out of nowhere and been rejected outright.

The shame, the humiliation of the act, kept her from seeking Hermione out.

She knew Hermione had been looking for her, asking about her, showing up at her room and loitering around after practice, tracking down her schedule and trying to corner her in hallways and empty classrooms.

She knew why Hermione was looking for her. She knew what was coming.

A gentle let-down. Quietly calm platitudes.

_I’m sorry, Ginny, but I just don’t feel the same way._

_You’re a great friend, Gin. I don’t want to mess that up._

_You know I love you Ginny, just… not like that._

_I’m sorry if I led you on._

She didn’t need to hear it. She didn’t need humiliation piled on top of existing humiliation.

Ginny loved her. She was pretty sure she was in love with her. And she’d already had her heart broken once.

She didn’t need a second time.

Best to just avoid her and avoid the whole situation. Let it all lie and hope that, in a few months maybe, Hermione will have forgotten why it was such an issue.

Maybe then Ginny could get their friendship back on track. Maybe then, with the newfound knowledge that she was pretty helplessly in love with her best friend, she could…

What could she do? What options did she have?

She was in love with Hermione. That wasn’t going away anytime soon.

Maybe they could just be friends? Ginny could handle that. She could probably handle that. Friendship and nothing more.

(She knew she was kidding herself. Being friends with Hermione would never be enough.)

(She was in love with her. That wasn’t going away anytime soon.)

**

She finally cornered Ginny in the library.

Ironically enough, it was a moment when Hermione had not been actively searching for her. She was padding through the shelves, running her fingers along the spines of old books, looking for something to supplement her notes on the Giant Wars for Professor Binns’ class (even Hermione, studious as she was, found his lectures a touch dry and lacking in some of the more nuanced pieces of background information).

She emerged from one of the stacks, blinking dust out of her eyes, and she almost tripped over sprawling legs.

Her foot caught and she stumbled, but a sure hand snapped up and braced her before she could do more than wobbly slightly on her feet.

“Hermione, shit.” Ginny stared back at her, eyes wide and slightly panicked, and Hermione felt the unmistakable crushing feeling of relief at the sight of her.

“Ginny…” Hermione sank down onto her knees next to the other girl and tipped forwards, throwing her arms around Ginny’s shoulders and catching her in an unexpected hug. It took a few moments of hesitation before Ginny reciprocated the gesture. “You’ve been avoiding me,” Hermione muttered into her ear. She could feel the flush of Ginny’s skin, hot and embarrassed, pressing against the side of her neck.

“I’ve been… you know… busy?” But the words were hesitant and unsure, her voice timid and lacking conviction.

Hermione pulled away. “I’ve been so worried.”

Ginny cleared her throat and looked down. “No need for that, Hermione. I’ve been fine.”

Hermione frowned. “Look, Ginny—”

Ginny’s face pulled into an expression that looked something like tortured trepidation. “Can we not do this right now, please?”

“No, Gin, I just… I just want to know you’re alright.”

“I’m fine,” Ginny said, though her voice was quiet and her eyes were nervous, “there’s nothing to worry about.”

Hermione sighed and reached out, resting one of her hands atop Ginny’s. “I never wanted this to stop us being friends,” she said quietly; earnestly.

Ginny’s hand clenched, like she was fighting the urge to draw it quickly away, to hold it to her chest in protection. “It hasn’t stopped us being friends. I just… after everything that happened I just needed some time.”

Hermione frowned. She tightened her hold on Ginny’s hand, almost like she was afraid to let go. “Time? For what?”

“For…” Ginny shook her head and finally pulled back into herself, looking down and away. “I don’t know, Hermione. Not everyone’s like you. We can’t all compartmentalize.”

Hermione’s nostrils flared. “You think that’s what I do?”

“I _know_ that’s what you do.” Ginny stared at some spot on her left shoe. Anything to not meet Hermione’s eyes. “You just _left_ , Hermione. You disapparated and you didn’t tell me where you were going, didn’t write or call to say you were okay. You just _left_.”

“I’m sorry,” Hermione said quietly. “I’m sorry. I was scared and confused and hurt, and I didn’t know how to go back in there and face your mum and—”

Ginny looked up at her through heavy lashes. “You’re my best friend, Hermione. You should have stayed.”

Hermione fidgeted, suddenly awash with nervous energy. This wasn’t fair. Ginny wasn’t being fair. She didn’t understand… “What would have happened if I had?” Hermione asked crossly. “What would we have done? There was no way out for us. You had to have known that. No way we could have gone back in there and smoothed things over.”

“So you just left? Like a coward?”

Hermione huffed. “No. Like someone _practical_.”

A loud shushing noise broke through the sphere of their conversation. They both glanced up to see Madam Pince glaring at them from across the room. She held a finger to her lips, her brows furrowed and severe.

Hermione heard Ginny scoff.

Hermione turned back to her, her voice now a low and heated whisper. “That’s not the only reason I left.” Ginny quirked an eyebrow, managing to look both haughty and disinterested. Hermione continued nonetheless. “I needed to talk to my parents,” she explained, her heart thrumming in her chest. “Work some things out.”

Ginny set her jaw. “Well,” she said, voice rising. “I’m glad you’ve worked through all your issues, then.”

Madam Pince shushed them loudly for the second time. They both ignored her.

“Don’t say that,” Hermione’s words were quiet but intense, a dull anger pulsing inside her veins. “You don’t know… you haven’t any idea what I’ve been doing.”

“You didn’t write me!” Ginny hissed, her own eyes flashing. “You didn’t try to contact me! But Harry calls and it’s no big deal, you can drop everything and—”

“I’m sorry, have you not been avoiding me for over a month?”

Ginny flushed, angry and red. “That’s different, that—” Ginny cut herself off as a shadow crossed their bodies, looming large and cold and blotting out the light.

They both tilted their heads up.

Madam Pince stood above them, arms crossed, hair in a strict bun, glaring at them over the spectacles perched at the end of her nose. “Miss Granger, Miss Weasley. The Library is for studying, working, and reading. I’m afraid I must ask you to take your _gossip—_ ” she sneered the word— “elsewhere.”

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but she didn’t have time to say anything. Ginny had already shouldered her bag and was hoisting herself from the floor. “No bother. I was just leaving.”

“Ginny…” Hermione reached out a hand, trying to grab onto Ginny’s wrist, but she was too fast. She slipped from Hermione’s grasp and had disappeared around the corner in a flash.

Hermione watched her go, feeling helpless and like she hadn’t managed to accomplish very much at all.

Madam Pince cleared her throat loudly and pointedly. She tapped her foot impatiently, hovering around Hermione as she slowly gathered her things and trudged back out into the corridor.

The door shut behind her with a loud finality.

Hermione sighed.

**

Ginny sat at one end of the Gryffindor table. While she tried to pretend she wasn’t doing it, she kept half an eye on Hermione, several metres away. Every time Hermione shifted in her seat, Ginny’s heart clenched tightly and her stomach rolled.

Like she was now, bent low over the table in engaged in a heated discussion with Ron.

Ginny felt queasy, but chalked it up to pre-game jitters.

She no longer felt the pressing urgency of previous weeks to avoid Hermione at every turn, but seeing her provided no reprieve from her anxiety. Their conversation in the library had been loud, stilted, and jarring. It had done next to nothing to make her feel better about their situation; next to nothing to encourage her or dissuade her; next to nothing to help diminish her romantic feelings for her friend; next to nothing to indicate that Hermione’s feelings had changed in the slightest.

She seemed angry that Ginny had been avoiding her, with seemingly no recognition of the fact that every time Ginny saw her she felt crushing shame and embarrassment. She was angry that Ginny had been avoiding her but completely ignorant to the reasons for that avoidance.

It was like she couldn’t tell, like she didn’t know. Like she didn’t even have an inkling of the depths of Ginny’s feelings.

(Which was impossible. Ginny had _kissed her_ , for fuck’s sake.)

It hadn’t been a good conversation, though she supposed that it was necessary, in the long run. They couldn’t go about avoiding each other forever. That just wasn’t feasible, considering who they were and where they went to school and who their friends were.

It was necessary. But it hadn’t exactly been pleasant.

To top it all off, more than a few people had overheard. Meaning that now Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley were once again the prime source of gossip for Hogwarts students.

The rumours flowed faster than before; the twittering of excitable Second Years an ever-present buzz in Ginny’s ear.

She closed her eyes against the pounding feeling in her temple and flexed her fingers in her gloves.

The game. She could focus on the game today. Everything was always easier when she was flying. Maybe she would have a good reason to punch Ron, too. That would just be icing on the cake.

Raised voices from somewhere down the table caught her attention. Ginny raised her head, brow furrowed, at the sound of Malfoy’s jeering laughter so close to her.

She could see him, flanked by Goyle, Zabini, and Parkinson, his eyebrows raised in a manner he must have deemed attractive, a sneer pulling at his nose. He stood directly behind Hermione, who was focused on eating her breakfast in a manner so immaculately calm that it could only have been fabricated.

Ginny flexed her fingers again, but this time in preparation of a fight.

She stood from the table almost without thinking.

~~

“Are you coming to the match, Hermione?” Neville asked from across the breakfast table. His voice was quiet and understanding, his eyes blatantly telling her: _I won’t judge you if you say no._

Hermione blinked across her porridge. “Of course,” she said as if it were simple. “I haven’t missed a match in six years. Not starting now.” (Perhaps it was simple.)

Harry shifted next to her, and it drew Hermione’s attention. He slipped something up his sleeve as he slid a miserable and brooding Ron a glass of pumpkin juice. “Drink up, Ron,” Harry said cheerily. “And try to eat something, will you?”

Ron moved to grab the glass, but something didn’t sit right with Hermione. “Wait, Ron,” she said, panicked, eyes meeting Harry’s next to her, “don’t drink that.”

Ron frowned. “What? What are you on about?”

“Harry,” Hermione hissed, bringing her voice low, “that’s illegal. You can’t just give Ron lucky potion and expect—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Hermione,” Harry said evenly, raising his eyebrows. He flicked his eyes back to Ron. “C’mon now Ron, down that juice so we can head to the pitch.”

Ron’s head tilted, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them.

“Ron,” Hermione warned again, “I’m serious, don’t drink—” But Ron didn’t listen to her. His expression set. He brought the goblet to his lips and swallowed the entirety in three huge gulps. “ _Ron_ ,” Hermione admonished, upset and affronted.

“Sorry Hermione, gotta go,” Harry said, laying a hand on her shoulder. She fought the urge to shake it off. “See you down there, yeah?”

“Harry you can’t just walk away—” But he had already stood from the bench, straightening his robes and making his way towards the Entrance Hall. “Ron, please, you can’t—” Hermione tried again, but it was no use. He barely even looked at her as he hurried off to join Harry stride for stride, headed toward the pitch.

She made to go after them, a million and twelve admonishments and warnings on her tongue, but a sneering voice cut in from somewhere behind her stopped Hermione in her tracks. She stiffened instinctively. “You off to the match, Granger?” Malfoy asked, voice high and teasing and cruel. “Pretty soon the entire Gryffindor team is going to have tried you out and tossed you aside.” Hermione did not turn around. “Or are you just trying to work your way through the blood traitors?” Zabini and Goyle laughed. Pansy Parkinson snickered.

Neville, sitting across from her, desperately tried to meet Hermione’s gaze, as if to ask her: _‘What do you want me to do?’_

Hermione just stared down at her food and continued to quietly eat.

She could feel more than a few eyes on her, but none of her schoolmates reacted. Bystander effect, she supposed. No one really stood up to bullies at Hogwarts.

But Malfoy wasn’t worth her time. People like Draco Malfoy got off on getting a reaction from their victims, on prodding old wounds, on inflicting emotional trauma. They tormented with freedom, easy with the knowledge that the system around them was put in place and designed specifically to protect people like them.

Hermione had known people like Draco Malfoy all her life.

It wasn’t worth it to say anything, to do anything in response. It wasn’t like he would get in trouble for a little teasing. When had that ever happened at this school, after all?

There was no point in making a scene. Besides, there was discipline in measured responses to adverse stimuli. Hermione always prided herself on her self-control.

And, frankly, she had heard worse from people worse than Malfoy.

Draco started talking loudly with his group of friends. “You know,” he said, his voice carrying, echoing through the Hall, “I’ve been meaning to write another couple verses to _‘Weasley is Our King’_ , what do you lot think?” Grunts of approval. “But I’ve been having trouble finding rhymes for fat and ugly — we wanted to write about his mother, see… we couldn’t fit in _useless loser_ either — for his father, you know… But you like the Weasleys, don’t you, Granger? Spend holidays there and everything, don’t you?” Neville stood suddenly, the bench scraping out behind him with a loud and groaning scream. He didn’t move further, but this one action was apparently hilarious to the Slytherins behind her, for their guffaws only strengthened.

Malfoy, voice jeering and high, did not stop. “Can’t see how you stand the stink,” he continued with a laugh, “but I supposed when you’ve been dragged up by Muggles, even the Weasley’s hovel smells…”

Hermione would have liked to say that her quiet and measured approach of ignoring Malfoy until he got bored of his little game was what finally made him bugger off, but no. Nothing was ever so simple.

The jeering taunts of Malfoy and his cronies ended abruptly with the sound of body meeting body and stumbling, scrambling feet.

Hermione turned her head just in time to see Malfoy tumbling to the ground, arms flailing out to the sides as he attempted to grab something to slow his descent. All he managed to do was half-strangle a young Hufflepuff who squawked as he yanked on the back of her collar on his way to the floor.

He hit the ground with a satisfying ‘ _thwack’_ as students all around gaped.

Hermione blinked, Malfoy spluttered indignantly, and it was only then that she noticed a girl dressed in bright Quidditch robes striding away from the scene.

Ginny’s hair, long and hanging straight down her back, clashed pretty spectacularly with her robes, and Hermione wondered why she had never noticed before.

“Get fucked, Malfoy,” she called over her shoulder, loud enough for at least half of the Gryffindor table (and quite a few Hufflepuffs) to hear, making yellow and crimson alike erupt into giggles.

Hermione wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be thankful or annoyed. Ginny could barely look her in the eye without flushing and turning her head and yet here she was, _defending_ her to Malfoy.

Hermione wondered if that was all anyone in her life knew how to do: respond to slights and offenses with violence and flashes of temper. Harry, fighting with Ron over her; Ron, reactionary and angry, picking fights with anyone who had slighted him, including his sister and best friends; Ginny, punching lockers and throwing tantrums and refusing to talk about anything that bothered her; Fred and George, in a _‘duel first, ask questions later’_ sort of way; and even Neville, with his well-intentioned but timid courage.

She wondered if that’s all they could do.

Couldn’t hold a serious conversation without blushing, the lot of them, but perfectly willing to use wands or fists whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Hermione wondered if it was something about her that drew these kinds of people to her.

She wondered how she was supposed to survive this.

Malfoy had risen at this point, his face beet red with fury. He brushed off the back of his robes and swept from the room, back straight and chin haughtily high. It didn’t do much to save face, but Hermione understood why he did it.

Pride ran deep with people like the Malfoys.

It ran deep with the Weasleys, too.

She sighed and stood from the table, ignoring Neville’s questioning voice, ignoring the muttered whispers of students around her.

She made her way down to the pitch alone, cloak pulled tight against the wind, and wondered.

~~

Ginny had an amazing game. She always did.

Hermione watched her out on the pitch, wind whipping her hair. She might be hopeless when it came to holding a halfway meaningful conversation, might be completely useless about expressing herself when it mattered, but she was one hell of a flier.

She was beautiful. It was impossible to ignore.

Ginny never looked more natural than she did when she was playing Quidditch. The worry and anxiety slipped from her face, the pinching around her eyes eased. She took to it like she was born to do it, like her broom was a part of her, like dipping and weaving between diving Seventh Years twice her size was something she lived for.

She had an amazing game.

And, for once, so did Ron.

It was like he was invincible. He flew better than Hermione had ever seen. He blocked every shot on the posts with the confidence of a man given infinite luck.

Hermione watched it all, a disapproving frown on her face.

Gryffindor won, of course. With an unstoppable keeper and the best goal-scorer in the school, there was no way they were ever going to lose.

Harry caught the snitch, the final whistle blew, and Gryffindor won 220-0. Their House section flooded the field, hoisting Ron onto their shoulders, lifting him higher and higher and higher. The crowd, chanting and laughing, started up a familiar tune:

 _Weasley is our King,_  
Weasley is our King,  
He didn’t let the Quaffle in  
Weasley is our King.

 _Weasley can save anything,_  
He never leaves a single ring,  
That’s why Gryffindors all sing:  
Weasley is our King.

~~

Hermione stood outside the Gryffindor tent, tapping her foot impatiently as congratulatory students and euphoric teammates streamed out one at a time.

Ron was toward the beginning of the crowd, but he was shepherded away by admirers and classmates before Hermione could do any more than smile at him.

He grinned back at her, too giddy to seemingly recall that they were meant to be in a row.

Harry was almost last. Hermione waited for him, foot tapping and arms crossed, a stern expression on her face before he even emerged into the afternoon sunlight.

He grinned at her (the bastard) and took a few steps forward, sweeping her up into his arms. When he put her down he made to ruffle her hair, but Hermione slapped his hand away with a serious scowl. “You stop that Harry,” she warned, but he just grinned wider, ducking under her arms to grab her from behind.

Hermione shrieked as she was once again hoisted off her feet. This time Harry spun her round and round before he placed her back on the unsteady ground.

Though she was in half a mind to smack him again, Hermione laughed, in spite of herself. He really could be very charming at times.

“Hi Hermione,” he finally said, turning her round to face him, “did you enjoy the game?”

Hermione cleared her throat and tried to re-adopt her stern demenour. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the potion you slipped into Ron’s drink this morning. I saw that, Harry. You know you could be _expelled_ for something like—”

“Hermione, relax. I didn’t slip anything in Ron’s drink.” He pulled the small golden vial out from his pocket and waved it in front of her face, grinning.

Hermione blinked at him, dumbfounded. “You… what?”

“I didn’t put anything in his drink! I only made him _think_ I had! He played like that all on his own! I always knew he could be a good keeper; he just needed to believe it, too.”

“I… _Harry_ …” She huffed. “You put me through _all_ of that and it was just a _bluff_?”

“Pretty smart, yeah? I’ve been known to have my moments.”

“I can’t believe you. Honestly, you’d think one of these days you’d tell me about a plan of yours before you—” A flash of red drew Hermione’s attention away from her conversation as Ginny came tumbling out of the tent flaps, her dirty Quidditch robes under one arm and her pads under the other.

She saw Harry and Hermione standing face-to-face only a few metres away, flushed a deep crimson, mumbled a quiet “Hey” and then took off towards the castle so fast she might have been sprinting.

Hermione sighed heavily. _More of this, then_.

Harry frowned. “Why did Ginny run away from here like she’d seen a ghost?” He glanced at Hermione out of the corner of his eye. “You two alright?”

Hermione shook her head, half-disgruntled and half-confused. “She’s been avoiding me. I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed.”

“I guess I just… I don’t know. I guess I just thought you were both taking some time away. Spending some time apart. Or… as apart as you can get in school, I guess.”

Hermione scuffed her shoe against the ground. “No. Not me, anyway. I’ve actually been pretty desperate to talk to her.”

Harry seemed surprised by her answer. “Oh, you want to get back together? Ginny said that you—” He continued to talk, but Hermione tuned his voice out. She had caught sight of Ginny, over his shoulder, disappearing into the castle with a long glance behind her at the pair of them.

She suddenly felt overtaken by… by something. By a desperate need to come clean, maybe? By a mountain of guilt over lying to her best friend, the man who had been unquestionably and irrevocably by her side throughout this entire ordeal?

Maybe it was a little bit of both.

For whatever reason — maybe a brain aneurism, maybe a stroke, maybe a moment of guilt or an act of contrition — Hermione was suddenly overtaken with the strongest desire to tell the truth.

“Harry, I have to tell you something,” Hermione cut him off quickly.

“Um, okay,” Harry said, unaware of the turmoil brewing in his friend’s mind. “What do you need to tell me?”

Hermione took a breath and closed her eyes. “Ginny and I never dated.”

Harry laughed. “What? What are you talking about? Of course you dated, I saw—”

“No, Harry. I… I’m trying to tell you that we weren’t really dating. We were faking it; pretending. We _pretended_ to date.”

“You…” The smile had slipped from his lips, confusion taking its place. His brows furrowed and he squinted at her from behind his glasses. “You… _pretended_ to date? What… what do you mean? What does that even _mean_?”

Hermione shivered, though she wasn’t cold at all. She wrapped her arms around herself — for comfort or just a distraction, she wasn’t sure — and fiddled with the buttons on her coat. “Ginny thought… well, with Ron and Lavender and everything, she thought it would be a good idea for me to date someone else. To… I don’t know, make Ron jealous? Get back at him somehow? But I told her I didn’t want to, because I didn’t want to get back with Ron. But then one day she just kissed me, out of the blue and in front of everyone. And then, well, what choice did I have? The damage was done. So I guess I just decided to… to go along with it? And, I don’t know, pretending to date someone is easier than being single. You have an excuse to say no to dates you don’t want to go on, you always have a plus-one to Slug Club gatherings, someone to carry your books in the hallway…” At the look on Harry’s face, Hermione was quick to continue. “I know, I know. They’re all selfish reasons to agree to something. I don’t even know why I _did_ it, really. I had no reason to say yes. But I _did_ say yes, and then it all just… spiraled out of control. We had to convince you and her brothers and Cormac and Lavender and Arthur and Molly and it just… at some point it just got to be too much.”

“You…” Harry shook his head. “I still don’t understand. I was you… I mean you were kissing and dating and sitting with each other and… and I saw your kiss at Slughorn’s party! That wasn’t… that _couldn’t_ have been fake.” He shook his head again, more vigorously. “You’re saying it was _all_ fake?”

Hermione nodded sheepishly. “Yes. It wasn’t real. There was… we were in public. There was mistletoe.”

Harry scoffed. “It looked pretty real to me, Hermione.”

Hermione shook her head vehemently. “No, no. It was just part of the act.”

“And who were you acting _for_ , exactly?”

“For… for you!” She gestured wildly with her hand, frustrated that he didn’t seem to understand, frustrated that he wasn’t angrier with her, frustrated she had to keep explaining this. “For Ron! For Cormac! We had to, you know… keep up pretenses!”

Harry shook his head. “Hermione, I’m sorry, but for the brightest witch of your age this has to be probably the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard in my life.”

She blinked at him, mouth agape. “ _What_?”

“You heard me. This. Completely idiotic. Who thinks of something like this?” He started listing things off on his fingers, expression comically serious. “You didn’t want to get back with Ron, so there was no _real_ need to make him jealous. No one was really bothering you for dates, except Cormac, so there wasn’t a reason to pretend to have a girlfriend for _that_. If you wanted a plus one to the Slug Club you could have gone with me, or even Ginny as your friend, so that’s that excuse out the window. And lastly—” he held out his pinky finger to represent this final line of reasoning— “Are you even gay? Why would you _pretend_ to be gay?”

Hermione flushed. “Does it matter if I’m gay or not?”

“Oh I don’t know, Hermione!” He threw up his hands in exasperation. “It might matter! Because it seems like you didn’t exactly think this plan through.”

Hermione shook her head, visibly put-out. “I didn’t plan _any_ of it! It was all Ginny!”

“ _Yeah_ , Hermione, obviously because she’s crazy about you! Of _course_ she planned all of this; of _course_ she gave herself an excuse to hold your hand and carry your books and kiss you every once in a while. She’s been mad about you for a year!”

Hermione stared at him. Her entire body went still. Even her heart stopped beating in her chest. “What are you on about?”

“Oh don’t tell me you haven’t noticed!” When Hermione continued to stare at him blankly, Harry lost a touch of his bravado. His arms dropped and his shoulders relaxed. “Oh,” he said quietly. “Oh you… you _haven’t_ noticed, have you?”

As the wind swirled around them, all Hermione could think was: _Noticed what_?

**

“Hey, Ginny.”

Ginny blinked and looked up at the shadowy figure standing above her. She had to squint for a moment — the day was bright and the skies were clear, and the girl was backlit so much that her entire face was indistinguishable as Ginny shielded her eyes from the sun — before she shifted and Ginny smiled.

“Hey, Katie.”

Katie Bell gestured to the spot next to her and quirked her head. “Mind if I sit?”

Ginny shrugged and motioned for her to help herself to the aforementioned spare bit of grass. She shoved over her pads, making a little bit more room next to her. Katie sat down, crossed her legs, and leaned back against the trunk of the tree Ginny was also using as a brace.

They sat in companionable silence for a few moments and simply looked out at the lake. It was cold but there was no snow anywhere. They were in that stretch of time between the middle of winter and the start of spring, where the Earth looked almost dead, the trees bare and menacing, the flowers not yet ready to break through icy ground. The skies were constantly gray and overcast, heavy with the threat of precipitation but never following through. Daytime had barely existed these past weeks. It rather seemed like, when it wasn’t dark, it was always just… the same intensity of brightness. The clouds stopped light gradation pretty effectively.

Today was the first time Ginny had seen the sun in close to two weeks.

The trees were bare, save for a few lingering dead, brown, and dry leaves which clung to stark and naked branches, twitching sadly in the wind.

It was cold, but Ginny found she didn’t mind. After her holiday cramped inside Grimmauld Place, she would take fresh air and wind at any moment — no matter the temperature.

Katie, it seemed, wasn’t of the same mind.

She shivered slightly and tucked her hands underneath her arms, hunching her body over herself to try and trap in any semblance of warmth she could.

Ginny slid a little closer, bringing their sides flush together. Katie shot her a thankful little smile. “It’s bloody freezing out here, isn’t it?”

Ginny nodded. “It is.” She closed her eyes and leaned back against the tree.

It was quiet for a few more moments, before Katie asked, softly, “Why are you out here, Ginny? You had a great game. Ron played brilliantly so even _he’s_ in a good mood. You should be celebrating inside.”

Ginny kept her eyes closed, and when she answered, her words sounded… lazy, sleepy. Like maybe she wasn’t really thinking about them. Like maybe she wasn’t fully engaged in this conversation. “It was too stuffy in there,” she answered truthfully, quietly. “Too many people.”

Ginny felt Katie shift next to her, felt her shoulder bob up and down as she readjusted herself a tad closer to Ginny’s body heat, heard her clear her throat. “You mean… Granger?” She asked tentatively.

Ginny’s eyes opened slowly and she turned to look at Katie. She regarded her silently for a few moments, weighing what she was going to say. Finally, she settled on the truth. “Yeah,” she answered honestly. “Maybe that too.”

(Hermione in the Gryffindor Common Room, sticking close to Harry’s side; Hermione shooting her soft little worried looks through the throng of pressing bodies; Lavender and Ron huddled up in a corner, Lavender shooting her foul looks; the nervous and comforting eyes of Neville and Dean. It was all too much.)

Katie swallowed thickly, flushed a bright pink (which was a tad confusing, seeing as Ginny didn’t really think she had said anything that warranted a blush) and looked down. “I heard about what happened. Well not…” Katie shook her head, “not _what_ happened, just that something did… did _happen_.” She brought her hands out of her their warm hiding space just long enough to shove her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really do like Hermione a lot. I’m sorry that it… well… you know.”

Ginny nodded and leaned her head back again. She kept her eyes open, trained on the lake, staring intensely at absolutely nothing. “Thanks, Katie.”

She could say: _“I like Hermione a lot, too,”_ or: _“It really does me no good if you say you’re sorry, because how is this your fault exactly?”_ or: _“Well it wasn’t like it was a real relationship anyways, so you hardly have to feel sorry for me.”_

But she didn’t say any of that. She was very tired, and it was very cold, and Katie was warm next to her, and she didn’t really feel like losing that feeling, just yet.

Besides, that was a tough conversation to have with someone she didn’t know very well.

And she was very tired.

“Still I… I know how hard it must be. To go… to do that. Break up.” A beat. A breath. A shifting of weight. “Listen I… stop me if this is just incredibly rude or something, but… did you… would you want to go out with me sometime?”

Ginny blinked and furrowed her brow. She turned to face Katie with an inquisitive expression on her face “Are you… asking me out?”

Katie shrugged. “Yeah, maybe?” Her eyes shifted and she glanced down at her crossed ankles.

Ginny cleared her throat and asked, quietly, “Sorry but… I don’t think I understand. What about you and Alicia?”

Katie’s head shot up, her eyes wide as they met Ginny’s. Ginny kept her face impassive. “You heard about that, huh?”

Ginny shrugged. “Only rumours. When I got on the team it felt more real.”

“Yeah, well… we never made quite the spectacle you and Granger did, so I imagine you didn’t hear much about us at all.”

Ginny bit her lip. “So you’ve broken up, then?”

Katie sighed and dipped her head down low. “Alicia and I are…” a long pause as she struggled with her words. “It’s complicated,” she finally said, quietly.

Ginny nodded. She understood complicated better than probably anyone. “I’m sorry,” she said, and it was sincere.

Katie shrugged. “Yeah. Me too.” It was quiet between them for a long while before Katie straightened her spine. It seemed that, now that Ginny had broached the topic, she had quite a bit to say about Alicia Spinnet. “She told me that I shouldn’t wait for her. That I should enjoy my last year and not worry about a long-distance girlfriend. She told me… if I still wanted to be with her when I graduated we could… ‘revisit,’ but that I shouldn’t…” She shook her head. “She wants me to date around and experience life as a student without any commitments. That’s what she said, at least.”

Ginny laughed humourlessly. “Bet you took her advice and went right to it, shagging people left and right.”

“Oh yeah, you know me. I’m quite the slag.”

Ginny shifted so her body was a little closer to Katie’s. She nudged her with her shoulder. “It is shite, Katie, but… but at the same time she _is_ trying to… do what she thinks is best for you.”

Katie huffed, her fingers toying with the edge of her cloak. “Yeah, well I wish she would let _me_ tell her what’s best for me, instead of trying to make my decisions for me. It’s like… it’s like because she’s older, she thinks that… that she can just… that I _don’t know_ what I want but that’s… that’s absolute rubbish.”

“Join the club, Katie.”

Katie’s eyes met Ginny’s, and Ginny slumped back against the tree, her shoulders suddenly heavy and her head thick. “I take it we’re in similar situations?” Katie asked.

“Similar. Not exactly the same but… there are parallels.”

“Then I’m sorry. Your breakup was worse than I thought.” Ginny shrugged but closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She was trying to appear unaffected, but she also knew that it was having the opposite effect. Katie was seeing right through her.

After a moment, Katie ventured, “So that’s a definite no to snogging me?”

Ginny laughed but kept her eyes closed. “Sorry, Katie. Don’t think I can help you out.”

“Bummer. I figured if Alicia was going to make me go through all of this I should at least try and see if it’s all she says it’s cracked up to be.”

“Sorry I can’t be your experiment.”

Katie shrugged and breathed warm air into her cupped hands, her fingers an angry shade of red. “Eh, no big. You’re a damn good chaser anyway, Weasley. Wouldn’t want any romance getting in the way of that.”

Ginny elbowed her, but couldn’t help the smile that tickled at the corners of her mouth. “You’re terrible.”

“Coming from the girl who just shot me down.”

“At least I did it in a _nice_ way.”

Katie laughed and relaxed a little more into her seat. “So am I just repulsive to you?” She teased.

Ginny snorted and shook her head. “Oh come off it, you know that that isn’t true.”

“And yet my dashing good looks couldn’t persuade you into a rebound relationship?”

Ginny shrugged. “Well you know… I’m really not looking to antagonize Hermione right now. And starting a new relationship… it would be like spitting in her face.”

Katie tilted her head in thought. “Well you could always go for the jealousy angle. I hear that works in films.”

Ginny laughed again, but it was bitter (she wasn’t sure Katie noticed the bite). “Yeah… That’s definitely not the best plan for this situation, I don’t think. Seems ill-advised.” She took a breath and said the words she had been too scared to voice, “Also, I want her back, so I really don’t think I should make her think I’ve moved on.”

“Oh.” Katie seemed genuinely surprised at that. “You do?”

Ginny took a shaky breath, but when she spoke, her words were sure and her voice was unwavering. “More than anything,” she said with a nod.

And it wasn’t until she said the words that she knew that they were completely and utterly true.

Katie nodded. “Well… alright then. Best of luck, Weasley.”

Ginny inclined her head. “You too, Katie.”

Katie pulled a bottle of butterbeer out from the depths of her bag. She used her wand to charm the cap off, took a large swig, and passed the drink to Ginny who accepted it gratefully. “To getting the girl?” Katie offered.

Ginny smiled, nodded, and raised the bottle in toast. “To getting the girl.”

**


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Oh no you don’t,” Hermione called from somewhere behind her. Ginny just tucked her hair behind her ears and walked faster, fidgeting with sweaty palms with the wand in her pocket. “You can’t just kiss me like that and run away!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with me through this long wait, you guys. The response to this story continues to blow me away every single day. I sincerely hope it was worth the wait.
> 
> There’s just one more chapter after this, and it’s the Epilogue. Thank you again for being so patient through the long months of waiting.
> 
> If you want to talk, come find me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/).

**

Hermione sat, quill poised above her parchment, a pile of books open and spread out in front of her, but her hand did not move. Her eyes lingered, unfocused, on the few terrible lines of the essay she had barely managed to write.

It was all garbage. _Completely_ useless. She couldn’t _possibly_ turn in something so haphazardly written, so poorly sourced, with such a dismal argument formation. Professor McGonagall would never accept such shoddy coursework — and _especially_ not from her.

Hermione sighed and pushed her books away from her, disgusted with herself and with her ineptitude. She sighed again and buried her head in her hands.

This business with Ginny was doing absolutely _nothing_ for her concentration. Exams were fast approaching and it was more important than ever that she be able to concentrate, study, and complete her assignments swiftly and accurately, and yet she could hardly string three coherent sentences together. It was incredibly disheartening to realize the extent of her abject failure.

What was she supposed to _do_? This whole situation was driving her absolutely mad. She was daydreaming in class, she was unable to focus on her assignments, and to make it all worse she hadn’t made anything for the house elves in going on two months now.

God, what was she supposed to _do_ about it all? This all felt like too much. Like her responsibilities were pilling up inside of her faster than she could chuck them aside and it felt like no matter what she did, it was never good enough. Her work was slipping everywhere, she seemed completely unable to prioritize assignments and activities, and _furthermore_ —

At the sound of someone dropping heavily into the empty seat across from her Hermione picked up her head, peering through a gap between her fingers.

Ron grinned at her sheepishly from across the table. “Hi, Hermione.”

It was enough to make Hermione’s eyes widen. She jerked upright, surprise clearly evident on her face. She stared at him, unsure of what to say. Judging by the past several months of behaviour, Hermione deduced that there was a significant possibility he was here to fight with her, so she eyed him warily, trying to decide if he was taking the piss or if he was genuinely after a conversation.

“Ron,” she said hesitantly. Suspiciously. She shifted in her seat and crossed her legs, folding her hands in her lap.

Ron fidgeted across from her. He adjusted the strap of his book bag where it rested against his shoulder, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to drop it or clutch it to his chest as a sort of protection against Hermione’s steady and searching look.

He dropped it to his side after a lengthy pause.

His hands couldn’t stay still. They fidgeted everywhere, shifting some of the books Hermione had spread out in front of her one moment, then running through his over-long hair the next, then fussing with his necktie, vacillating between loosening and tightening the knot at his throat.

Through it all Hermione watched him carefully, tracking his every movement. Waiting for… something. For an angry eruption, perhaps. For him to pull his wand on her. For him to open up about whatever was clearly bothering him.

After a minute and a half of tense and uncomfortable silence, Ron finally sighed and ran his hand once more through his hair. He looked up and met Hermione’s gaze and swallowed thickly. “I want… I want to apologize.”

Hermione blinked back at him. “I’m sorry?”

“Yeah,” Ron nodded solemnly. “For the way I’ve been behaving, recently. Towards you and Ginny. It hasn’t been fair to either of you.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “No,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “It hasn’t.”

“Right. I know that.” Ron took a breath. “Look, I feel really lousy about the whole situation. I’ve tried talking to Ginny, but she frankly doesn’t want anything to do with me, at the moment.”

“Well, you and I have that in common.”

Ron chuckled wryly. “Yeah. She’s stubborn, that one.” Hermione’s face must have effectively communicated that she was unimpressed with his lack of self-awareness because Ron flushed and cleared his throat. “Something _she and I_ have in common, I gather.”

“Yes,” Hermione said, with very little emotion. Because it was the truth. He may very well be the most pig-headed man she had ever had the misfortune of befriending, and she was fairly sure he was aware of that fact. Either way, with everything he had put her through over the last few months, she wasn’t about to sugar-coat anything for him.

Ron cracked his knuckles and started running his hands together, a nervous habit he picked up from his father at an early age. Hermione watched his fingers twist together with a purposefully blank expression. “Um, so…”

“What brought this on?” Hermione interjected hotly. “This… sudden need to apologize to me?”

Ron recoiled slightly and frowned at the hostility in her voice. “I don’t know,” he said, brows furrowed in concentration. “I’ve been… I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Especially since the holiday. And I’ve been thinking, you know, how messed up it’s all been. How hard it’s been. And… how much I miss you.” He fidgeted with several of Hermione’s books again, pushing them into a neat little line almost without thinking. “Harry’s great and all, but… it’s no fun having just one mate around, you know?” His mouth tugged up on one side, giving Hermione a pained sort of half-smile-half-grimace. “Plus, he can be a little daft, especially with classes and with exams coming up—”

Hermione’s nostrils flared and she felt her blood start to boil. “If you’re here because you need someone to edit your essay for you, I want you to know that I’ve _barely_ started mine and also that you have some _nerve_ trying to get me to—”

“ _No_ ,” Ron cut her off quickly, “ _Merlin_ , Hermione, no. I’m not here to get you to edit my essay.” He shook his head. “You must have a _seriously_ low opinion of me, haven’t you?”

Hermione snorted. “Do you remember how you’ve acted for the past six months? Or did I dream all of that?”

“Right.” Ron cleared his throat, looking rather sheepish and a little put out. “Well. I deserve that, I suppose.”

Hermione huffed. “You think?”

Ron sighed and leaned across the table, bringing his body much closer to hers. He tugged at his chair, scraping the legs against the plush red carpet of the Common Room. When he spoke next, it was with a slightly lower voice. “I didn’t come here to row, Hermione,” he said. “And I didn’t come here because I need help with my homework.” He smiled slightly as he tried to crack another joke. “Although, my marks _have_ seriously slipped in the past few months.” Hermione arched her eyebrow, and Ron was quick to move along. “Right. Sorry. Wrong time for that.”

Hermione sighed and moved to pick up the quill she had discarded at the beginning of their conversation. “Look, Ron, it was nice of you to come over here, but I really have a lot of work to do, so if you don’t mind—”

Ron reached a hand across the table and placed it on top of hers, stilling her movements. Hermione met his gaze. She blinked at the expression in his eyes, at how open they were, how dark, how sincere. He looked at her with a deep sadness, and it was enough to melt away the few lingering remnants of her anger.

It was truly bizarre how quickly her feelings for Ron could change. How he could trigger in her the most aggressive emotions — the highest highs and the lowest lows — with simply a few misplaced words. How just looking him in the eye was enough to make her want to completely throw out the past few months and never discuss them again.

“I’m sorry, Hermione,” Ron said softly. Her fingers twitched under his. “I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting. I’m sorry for being a prat, a selfish git, and a terrible friend on top of it all. I should have supported you when I found out about you and Ginny, but instead I let my ego get in the way.” He squeezed her hand with his. “I really, _really_ hope that I haven’t ruined things for us. I really hope that I can start to make it up to you and we can… can start to be friends again. With any luck.” His lips quirked up hopefully, his nose scrunching in a way that Hermione used to find devastatingly handsome.

She smiled back at him, feeling full-bodied relief for perhaps the first time in the better part of half a year. She flipped her hand up so her palm met his. Let him interlock their fingers.

“Thank you for apologizing,” she said sincerely as she applied firm pressure to his hand. “It doesn’t make up for what you did,” she was quick to caution, “but I think… I think it’s a very good start.”

Ron opened his mouth to say something further, but he never got the chance.

A sudden movement in the corner of her eye caused Hermione to break eye contact with him.

Ginny stood not four metres from her, right at the edge of the Portrait Hole. Her bag was slung over her shoulder and she was wearing her training pads, like she had just been out flying by herself. Her boots were caked in mud, her hair wind-swept and pulled back from a face that was completely devoid of makeup.

She stared at the spot on the table where Hermione and Ron were holding hands and blinked, slowly, but otherwise showed no expression.

For no reason she could consciously discern, Hermione’s heart immediately seized in her chest.

She yanked her hand out of Ron’s faster than she thought possible and stood quickly, her chair falling back and toppling away from her. Ginny’s eyes flicked up and met hers for only a fraction of a second before she turned on her heel and disappeared back the way she had come.

Hermione called her name, but Ginny didn’t turn around. She chased after her, only a few steps behind, her heart rate speeding up and her palms beginning to sweat as she felt herself enter into a blind panic.

She could explain. She could explain so easily if she could just— if Ginny would just slow down and let her _explain_ —

She collided with something bright red and solid the second she stepped out from the Portrait Hole. The wall of red sweater grunted as Hermione smacked into his rib cage and only a steady hand on her upper arm stopped the both of them from toppling over.

“Merlin, Hermione,” Neville apologized rapidly, “I didn’t see you there. Sorry. My Nan always says I need to be more careful of my— hey, where are you going?”

Hermione didn’t stop to speak to him. She ducked around his lumbering frame and dashed down to the end of the hall. But by the time she rounded the corner, it was no use. There was no sign of Ginny anywhere, in any direction, and Hermione knew it would be useless to try and find her.

 _God_ , what she wouldn’t do for Harry’s cloak and the Marauder’s Map right about now…

Hermione spun in place, the castle walls feeling large and hulking and dark and cold as they towered around her, a nearly-impenetrable maze she could not hope to conquer. It wasn’t late in the evening but Hermione felt suddenly like a small child exploring the cellars of a haunted house — petrified, lost, and completely alone.

She spun once more, her eyes scanning the corridor for any sort of clue — a flash of red hair, a billowing cloak, a large neon sign with an arrow saying ‘ _Ginny Weasley This Way’_ … anything at all.

But it was no use.

She was already gone.

Hermione wrapped her arms around her stomach and bent forwards, just a little. Just enough so that it didn’t feel like her lungs were trying to force their way out of her chest.

Just enough so that it felt like she could breathe, again.

She felt a little like crying.

**

The night Ginny saw Ron and Hermione holding hands in the Common Room, she didn’t sleep. Didn’t even try.

She spent the night wandering about the castle, dodging prefect patrols and Peeves and Filch and Mrs. Norris. She spent a good deal of time in the kitchen with the house elves but eventually had to leave because they kept trying to shove treacle tarts down her throat and though she _told_ them she wasn’t hungry they just wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The thought of food only further unsettled her already tumultuous stomach, so Ginny couldn’t stay in the kitchens for very long.

She stayed up all night. Too afraid to go back to the Common Room lest she risk running into Hermione or Harry or her brother. Too afraid to go back to the Common Room, too invested in her own contrition and self-punishment to seek out some other place to sleep. Because it wasn’t like she was lacking in alternative options. The Room of Requirement was likely un-inhabited at the moment. Luna, of course, would be more than willing to let Ginny share her bed (that is to say, if Ginny could manage to solve her way into Ravenclaw Tower, which was always a gamble even on her best days).

But she didn’t want that. She didn’t _want_ to sleep. Sleeping was too much of an escape. It was much easier to lament her own suffering if she was awake and conscious enough to do it. Besides, the last Hogsmede trip of the year was happening tomorrow. She only had to make it until about 9 in the morning before she could slip off undetected and get lost in the crowds of students funnelling towards the village.

Ginny sighed and let her back slide down the wall behind her. She was currently tucked away into some sort of alcove that she figured was probably pretty well-hidden from any students or teachers who might be patrolling the halls. Although given the fact that it was approaching three in the morning, she probably would be pretty safe from detection regardless of where she decided to sit out the rest of the night. But still.

She glanced up at the statue looming above her. The image it depicted — a young woman mid-flight on a winged horse — was interesting enough to distract her for at least a few minutes. But those minutes passed quickly, and then she was alone with her thoughts again.

She sighed and leaned back against the wall, the cool stone seeping through her thin training clothes, making her shiver. She looked down at her hands, still flecked with mud from the pitch outside, still encased in her thick gloves. She stripped the leather away from her body slowly, carefully. Watched as the pale skin underneath became slowly exposed.

She flexed her fingers a few times before folding her arms around herself.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her head in the crook of her elbows and allowed herself, for the first time in several weeks, to cry.

She cried for a very long time.

~~

It was a warmer-than-average morning when Ginny finally slipped from the castle, blinking rapidly against the harsh intensity of the sun.

Her head felt thick. Clogged with soup. Her bones hurt in her body; her joints creaked; her muscles ached from a night full of sitting on hard floors and leaning against cold rock.

Now that it was morning and the sun was up, she realized that she probably should have _tried_ to sleep last night. Or at least taken a bath and swapped out her clothes. But the idea of going back to Gryffindor Tower — even to just grab a clean set of robes — felt like a far too daunting task, even in its simplicity. She couldn’t seem to bear it, so instead she hitched her bag higher on her shoulder, kicked some of the caked mud off of her boots, and strode out the front doors with her head held high.

Walking away from Hogwarts, Ginny felt an enormous weight lift from her shoulders. As much as she might be sleep-deprived and as much as her body might be screaming at her in protest over the lack of respite, as she walked away from school Ginny felt like she could breathe, again.

Her early start on the day meant two things: she was almost completely alone as she made her way towards Hogsmede, and she hadn’t had any sort of breakfast. Her stomach growled at her as she approached her destination and she placed a flat palm against her abdomen. Getting some food was the first thing she was going to have to deal with. Her sleepless night had left her lethargic and queasy, the way sleepless nights were wont to do, so eating something to settle her stomach was a priority. She just needed to find—

Ginny pulled up short, her head whipping around as she did a double-take. “ _Bill_?” The sight of her brother’s tall frame leaning against the outside of the Three Broomsticks was a surprising one indeed, and for a moment Ginny thought she had to be imagining things. She blinked at him, her mouth agape and her eyes wide.

He grinned, kicking himself off the wall and flicking his cigarette butt into the nearby street. (It was common knowledge amongst the Weasley children that more than a few of them smoked. But — in the manner of true familial solidarity — they rarely talked about it. And none of them, not even Percy, _ever_ snitched to their parents. Their mum would flay them alive if she knew.)

“Hey, Gin,” he said, crooked smile on his perfect, cleanly-shaven face.

She took a few steps forward and threw her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in the warm fabric of his knitted jumper. He wrapped his strong arms around her back and held her to his chest for a few long moments. “What are you _doing_ here?” She asked, the words muffled against his broad chest. She pulled her face away from him. “Does _Ron_ know you’re here?”

Bill shook his head. “I had some business nearby with a few of the Order, and since my trip overlapped with your Hogsmede day, I thought I’d get here early so I could surprise my favourite sister.”

Ginny smiled at him, already feeling her day starting to improve. “Do you want me to try and find Ron? He’s probably not awake yet, but if we hang around I’m sure we could—”

“Actually, Gin,” he cut her off quietly, pushing her hair out of her face, “I thought maybe we could talk. Just the two of us.”

She balked. “Oh,” she said, suddenly filled with more than a little trepidation. “Okay. Sure. If you like.”

He smiled and ruffled her hair, making her abruptly feel about ten years old. “Don’t look so scared, Ginny,” he laughed. “Come along. I’ll buy you breakfast.”

 

It was warm inside the Inn, and dark, the thick oak wood of the floors and tables making it feel as if it were the middle of the night rather than midmorning. Ginny blinked a few times to try and adjust to the light difference and rubbed at her bleary eyes. The lack of sleep from the night before was starting to catch up to her in a bad way. She stifled a yawn behind her hand as she followed her brother towards a table in the back.

He ordered a full English breakfast spread from Madam Rosmerta, who spent a good 70% of the time she was around their table flirting shamelessly back at him. Bill smiled politely but did not respond to her less-than-subtle advances. Ginny, for her part, probably would have found the whole thing a touch more amusing if she wasn’t simultaneously starved, exhausted, and growing more and more anxious about Bill’s intentions toward seeking her out on his own. It didn’t usually mean good things when Bill came back around. He only ever really showed up for family emergencies, Order business, or holidays. So for him to be here now, with a very obvious agenda… it wasn’t something that put her at ease, to say the least.

Bill smiled at her over their tea and Ginny tried to smile back, but she knew it came off more as a pained grimace than anything close to resembling happiness. But if her brother noticed her discomfort, he did not respond to it. He simply chatted happily about every day occurrences, shared a bit about his job at Gringott’s, caught her up to speed on some of the Order’s less-secret goings on, and asked Ginny how the Quidditch team was faring this season.

She answered as best she could, tried to engage in the conversation to the best of her abilities, but the longer they stretched out their chat while skilfully avoiding any serious topics, the more and more restless Ginny became. Eventually, she had enough of his performed nonchalance. She could only take so much before she had to intervene. “Bill,” she cut him off in the middle of a lengthy story about the time he and Fleur had gone to visit her family in France, “this is nice and all, but… why are you actually here? I know it’s not just to buy me breakfast.”

He smiled at her, his eyes kind and understanding in a way that made Ginny’s skin crawl. “Why don’t we wait for our food first, yeah? You look like you haven’t been eating very much.”

Ginny pulled her robes tighter around her body. “I’ve been eating just fine.”

He arched an eyebrow, clearly not believing her. “And have you been sleeping just fine, too? Because you look like you slept outside last night.”

Ginny tugged her fingers through her hair, wincing when they got caught on a few particularly stubborn knots. She dismissed him with the ease of a practiced liar. “I’m fine,” she breezed. “Honestly, you’re worse than Mum, sometimes. If you only came here to criticize my appearance, then you can just—”

“We’re worried about you, Ginny.” Ginny clenched her jaw shut tight, her eyes flashing as they met his. Bill sighed. “It’s just… it’s been _months_ , Gin.”

“Has it?” She scoffed. “Gotta say, I for one _haven’t_ noticed the deafening silence from most of my family. Makes time feel like it’s just _zipping_ by, doesn’t it?”

Bill shook his head. “You have to know it’s a difficult situation. We’ve all been worried sick about what you’ve been going through.”

Ginny scowled. “No you haven’t.”

“Yes, we _have_ , Ginny,” he implored. “ _Honestly_ we have. Mum has been—”

“Well, I haven’t seen an owl from her. No notes, no apologies. Nothing from Dad, or Charlie, or _you_ for that matter.” She clenched her hands into fists and fought the urge to growl. “And Mum isn’t here right now, so she can’t have been _that_ put-out by it all.”

Bill laid his hands on the table, open and palm up. “She doesn’t know how to _deal_ with this, Ginny. She’s never had to deal with this before.”

“ _You_ all dealt with it just fine.” Ginny said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t see why _Mum_ gets a pass just because she can’t handle the fact that I had a girlfriend. Everyone _else_ is allowed to date whoever they like and they _never_ —”

“It _isn’t_ the girlfriend thing, Ginny,” Bill shook his head. Ginny huffed in response. If he was going to keep interrupting her, she was in half a mind to hex him. He continued, “You know that it isn’t. She just… she made a mistake. And she _knows_ she did. She’s worried about you and she thinks you hate her and she doesn’t want to make it all worse.”

“Can’t make it worse if she doesn’t try to make it better.”

“Ginny—” Bill cut himself off as Madam Rosmerta appeared at their table, carrying two plates loaded with more food than Ginny had ever seen for one person. Her stomach growled in anticipation and she had to swallow to hide the fact that she was noticeably salivating.

“Here you are, dears,” Rosmerta said with a wink to Bill. She placed the food in front of them. “Let us know if I can get anything else for ya.” She shot another long and lingering look at Ginny’s brother before finally turning on her heel and heading back to the bar.

Ginny dug into her food as a way of avoiding the unpleasant conversation she knew was about to restart. (That, and the fact that she really _was_ starving.) Bill watched her carefully as she practically inhaled her plate of eggs. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on her food, refusing to let him know how uncomfortable his steady gaze made her.

It was several minutes of silent eating before Bill finally sighed and put down his fork. “I just want you to know…” He trailed off, waiting until she finally brought her eyes up to meet his before continuing in a quiet voice, “Look, I get it, okay? I get it better than any of them.”

“What are you—?”

“You think I don’t know how you lot feel about Fleur?” Ginny’s face fell, but Bill didn’t look angry. He didn’t look defeated. He was remarkably calm, his voice soft and measured as he continued talking. “You think I don’t know what Mum thinks of her? That I don’t know what you all say about her when we aren’t around?” Ginny flushed, suddenly ashamed. “I _get it_ , Ginny. I do. I understand what it’s like to have your mum hate your girlfriend. I _do_.”

“I’m sorry,” Ginny apologized in a meek voice. “I didn’t realize.”

“I never say anything. I mean, it bothers me for sure. It’s not exactly _thrilling_ , knowing that the woman you love is despised by your family.”

“We don’t… we don’t _despise_ her, Bill.”

Bill quirked his head. “Fred and George don’t. Charlie doesn’t. Ron is half in love with her so _he_ isn’t a problem.” He smiled sadly. “But I know you can’t stand her. And I know Mum thinks I could do better.”

Ginny swallowed. “I don’t want you to think I _hate_ her,” she said softly.

But Bill chose not to acknowledge what she’d said. “The point is, Gin… it doesn’t matter if you _do_ hate her. It doesn’t matter if Mum is a little cold or if you pull faces when she isn’t looking or if Fred and George tease me about our relationship or if Ron can’t speak whenever she’s in the room. It doesn’t _matter_. Not to me.”

Ginny shook her head. She didn’t understand. “How is that _possible_?” She asked plaintively.

Bill smiled and folded his hands together. He shrugged. “Because I love her. And she loves me. I know how I feel about her, and that isn’t an issue. It doesn’t matter what you all think, because I know that _I_ love her. And I know that that’s all that matters.”

“I wish it was that simple,” she muttered.

Bill put a hand on her shoulder. “Do you love Hermione, Gin?”

“…Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Then that’s all that matters.”

Of course it wasn’t that simple. Nothing was ever quite so simple as one might like to believe. But Ginny appreciated her brother’s advice. If nothing else, getting to see him and getting to speak so honestly about their love lives was something unprecedented between them. It was nice to have a moment together, just the two of them.

The age difference between them had always been pretty insurmountable. He was 11 years old when she was born, and just entering his first year at Hogwarts. By the time she was old enough to start forming memories, he was already graduating. By the time she got her first wand, by the time she first picked up a broom, he was already off on his own, pursuing his own dreams and living his own life away from her and away from their home. She rarely got to see him outside of big holidays or vacations or birthdays.

He was a grown man by the time she was 10. It was hard to bond with someone in that situation. Brother or not, he had over a decade on her. And that was a hard barrier to clear.

But Bill was smart. And he was kind. And he was well-meaning and caring, and she knew he loved her deeply, knew he worried about her, knew he followed her Quidditch career and rooted for her to succeed. He bought her her first set of gloves when she was 9, her first set of pads when she was 12. She knew he loved her and cared about how she was faring.

Seeing him like this, in a situation like this, discussing topics like these was something completely different for her and completely different for them. But she loved him for it. She really, truly did. And when it was time for him to leave, she was sad to see him go.

He pulled her into a tight hug outside the Three Broomsticks and she gripped onto the fabric of his jumper tightly, wanting to keep him close to her for just a moment longer.

“Cut Mum a little slack, will you?” He whispered as they pulled away. “She’s only ever wanted what’s best for you. She just… doesn’t know what that is.”

Ginny swallowed and bit her lip. “I’ll…” She pulled a face. “I’ll… work on that, yeah.” It would be hard for her to just _ignore_ everything that her mother did and said, hard for her to put it all behind her, especially when Mrs. Weasley seemed so reluctant to reach out and try to apologize. But if Bill wanted her to try, then she was going to try. For him, if for no one else.

“Good.” He smiled and this time it was brighter. This time, Ginny smiled back. “I hope things get better between you and Hermione.”

Ginny frowned. “How did you know—?”

“Ron’s been sending us owls.” Bill reached out and pulled her cloak up her shoulders, straightening the fabric of her tie. “He’s worried about you. Thinks you’re taking this a lot harder than you’re letting on.”

Ginny’s mouth nearly fell open in shock. She could hardly believe Ron would do something like that, would take the time to notice how she was feeling, to reach out to their brothers, to actually care about someone else for a change. She stared at Bill, unsure of how to take in this new piece of information.

Bill just shrugged. “He’s trying too, Gin. I think he feels really bad about all of this. You should hear what he has to say.”

Ginny swallowed thickly but nodded.

If today had taught her anything, it was that maybe he brothers paid more attention than they let on. Maybe they cared a little more deeply for her than she originally thought. Maybe they were all more in tune with the goings-on of their little family drama than Ginny had known. Maybe they were more compassionate than she gave them credit for.

And maybe she was more selfish than she initially thought, too. Maybe she should try to learn to stop holding grudges.

If _Ron_ could grow some emotional maturity, then maybe she could, as well.

**

As Harry slipped into the empty space on the bench next to her in the Great Hall, he bumped his shoulder into hers. “So I hear you and Ron are on speaking terms again,” he said, flashing Hermione a quick grin as he reached across her for the pitcher of pumpkin juice perched just to her left. “Thank God, might I add, because it’s really been miserable with you two fighting.”

“Yeah,” Hermione said, half-distracted as movement near the entranceway caught her eye. But it was just a group of Hufflepuff fourth years, bundled in scarves and gloves, giggling as they scampered into the Great Hall. Hermione frowned as, once again, Ginny refused to materialize. “We… we’re working through it, I think,” she said quietly, still craning her neck slightly, scanning the next group of students piling into the Great Hall, hoping to catch a flash of red hair. But no such luck.

Harry grinned and passed her a glass of juice. “Brilliant!” He cheered, raising his own glass to toast with her.

Hermione smiled quietly as she accepted the goblet, but the expression didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Now it was Harry’s turn to frown. “Okay…” He said slowly. “You don’t… seem like you’re as excited by this as you should be. This is _great_ news, Hermione! We can finally start to move on from all of this…” He waved his hand about his face. “From all of _this_. So why do you look like Buckbeak just ate your cat?”

Hermione rolled her eyes and smacked him on the shoulder. “Don’t even joke about that, Harry. It’s frightful.”

He held his hands up in mock-surrender. “You’re right, I’m sorry. No more jokes about Crookshanks.” But Hermione paid him no mind, as yet another group of chattering students poured through the entranceway. Hermione sat up a little straighter when she caught sight of their robes — finally a group of Gryffindors — but despite the fact that Hermione recognized more than a few faces (including Neville’s), Ginny’s wasn’t among them.

She sighed and turned back to her porridge, uncomfortably aware of the way Harry was watching her closely. She glanced up at him. “What?” She asked, her voice tinged with just a hint of hostility.

“Looking for Ginny?” He asked.

Hermione twirled her porridge. “She ran out of the Common Room last night after she saw me talking to Ron,” she admitted softly. “I haven’t seen her since. And I don’t think she came back to her room last night. I’m worried, I suppose.”

“Is she already in Hogsmede, you reckon?” Hermione shrugged in response. Harry hummed as he took a few bites of toast. “How’d Ron take it when you told him about you and Ginny and the fake-dating, by the way? He seemed in a decent mood this morning. Must have gone well.”

Hermione froze. “What?” She hissed, bending her head low to his, to make sure no one could possibly eavesdrop. “I didn’t… I haven’t told him _anything_. Are you mad? He… I can’t _tell him_. You saw what he was like when he thought it was _real_ , if he knew—”

Harry’s frown deepened. “So you’re just… _not_ going to tell him? You’re _never_ going to tell him? I thought you fancied Ginny. What are—?”

Hermione gripped his fingers tightly in her fist. “You can’t tell him, Harry. _Please_ , you can’t… He’ll _murder_ me.”

“Of _course_ I won’t tell him. Not if you don’t want me to. I’m not _heartless_.” Harry shook his head. “But you two need to figure a way out of this before—”

“I _know_ ,” Hermione cut him off. “I know.”

Harry took a deep breath. “Hermione, I just…” He rubbed at his eyes, looking suddenly very tired. “I just… I have to know. I love Ginny; she’s one of my best friends. I don’t want to see her get her heart broken. So if you aren’t serious about this, if you’re going to string her along—”

“ _Harry,_ I wouldn’t dream of—”

“You wouldn’t on purpose,” Harry interrupted quickly. “I’m just saying: be careful with her, yeah? Don’t… don’t try to start anything if you don’t know what you want.”

“And how do you know if I know what I want?”

“Well… _do_ you?”

Hermione glanced around them quickly to make sure they weren’t being overheard. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, but it lost none of its intensity. “I care about her, Harry. These past months… I know it was all pretend, but…” She took a quick breath. “It _wasn’t_ pretend. Not all the time. It didn’t feel… it was _real_. Sometimes it… it felt so _real_ , and I just…” She trailed off, unsure how to formulate the words.

But Harry, wonderful Harry, didn’t need her to elaborate. “Okay,” he said, nodding a little as he held her gaze steady. “Okay.” It was quiet between them for a few long moments before Harry offered, gently, “She’s mad about you. You know that right?”

Hermione scoffed, low and under her breath. “So you’ve said.”

“You know I’m right,” Harry reiterated. “You’ve felt it. You know.”

And she would never admit it — not out loud, not even to herself, lest even thinking the words somehow made it untrue — but Hermione did know, deep down, that he was right. She had felt it, had guessed, had interpreted all the signals.

She knew he was right.

She just needed to talk to Ginny. _God_ , she just needed to talk to her. If only she could _find her_.

**

It wasn’t like Ginny was _avoiding_ Hermione. Not really. At least, that wasn’t her _intention_. Well, maybe it was on Saturday, when she had just gotten back from Hogsmede. But she was running on a full night of no sleep, and she hadn’t had a bath since before practice the day before, so she couldn’t exactly hunt Hermione down and tell her: _“Hey, Hermione, so I’ve realized that I actually fancy you a fair bit. I know we were pretending to make Ron jealous, but when we kissed it felt like so much more than something we were doing for show. Would you like to date me for real? Please ignore the fact that I look like I’ve just escaped a mad house, it’s just that seeing you holding hands with my brother sort of felt like getting a Bludger to the face so I had to… spend the night in an empty hallway. But if you want to date him I would understand. I wouldn’t like it, but I would understand if that’s how you wanted this all to end. That’s what we agreed on, after all. I don’t think you **should** date him, I think you can do a lot better, but if—”_

Ginny shook her head as her rambling thoughts started to get completely out of control. _Merlin_ , she was a mess. She couldn’t even think straight.

She couldn’t very well see Hermione _now_ , not like _this_ , not when she couldn’t even figure out what she wanted to _say_ to her.

So, maybe that first day she _was_ avoiding Hermione. And maybe the next day she stayed in her bedroom, tucked under her covers. But that was only because she had an essay to finish for McGonagall’s class. Not because she was _avoiding_ Hermione.

(She spent most of the day with her quill posed over a spare bit of parchment, her leg bouncing restlessly underneath her as she tried to scrawl down any of the mad thoughts racing through her head, as she tried to work through it all, as she tried to come up with exactly the right thing to say to Hermione when she saw her next. But McGonagall never needed to know that.)

So when Monday rolled around, Ginny had spent a full weekend successfully — though perhaps unintentionally — avoiding the one person she desperately wanted to see.

All things considered, she really shouldn’t have been so surprised when, sometime after lunch on Monday afternoon, while Ginny was making her way up to the Astronomy tower for an absolutely useless Divination class, an arm stuck out of an abandoned classroom and grabbed her by the collar of her robes.

She yelped as she was yanked sideways, stumbling over her own feet as she toppled into the empty room, hand already scrabbling for the wand tucked into her sleeve. The door slammed shut behind her and Ginny whirled around, pulling her wand, a curse on the tip of her tongue. When she saw who had dragged her so unceremoniously inside she immediately deflated, the fight leaving her instantaneously. “ _Hermione_ …” She muttered, trying to force her heart rate into something which more closely resembled normal.

Hermione eyed her drawn wand with her eyebrow arched, clearly unimpressed. “Were you going to hex me?” She asked, arms folded over her stomach.

Ginny tucked her wand back into her robes, feeling heat prick at the tips of her ears. “Well, you _did_ try to kidnap me. Have you forgotten there’s a war on?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “What choice did I _have_ , Ginny? You’ve been avoiding me for _weeks_.”

Ginny shifted her weight between feet, her eyes darting about uncomfortably. “Not… I’ve not been _avoiding_ you. I wouldn’t call it that.”

“What _would_ you call it, then?”

Ginny huffed and crossed her arms over her chest and decided not to answer the question. “Well… I’m here, now,” she said, trying at once to make it clear that she did not want to be here but also that she had no intention of leaving. She felt she was flying a pretty fine line. “So. What did you want to talk about?” But that wasn’t what she wanted to say at all. This isn’t how she wanted _any_ of this to go. This wasn’t what was _supposed_ to happen. She had a piece of parchment folded tightly and stuffed into her pocket, covered top-to-bottom with her cramped, smudged writing. She had written out dozens and dozens of sentences, dozens of confessions, a dozen different variations of _I think I’m in love with you_ in every combination imaginable. But now, standing here in front of Hermione, with the parchment burning a hole in her pocket and her palms growing sweaty where she kept them clenched at her sides, with her stomach rolling over and over and turning in on itself… she couldn’t remember any of the words she had practised. All she felt was a panicked need to lash out, to fight, to deflect, to… to do whatever she had to do to get out of this situation as best she could.

(She suddenly felt far too young, far too inexperienced, far too immature for everything she felt needed saying. Merlin, she was just 16. What did _she_ know about love? What did she know about emotions and the depth of feelings? She could barely pass _Potions_. How was she meant to tell Hermione she was _in love_ with her?)

“We need to talk,” Hermione said, taking a step forwards and closing the distance between them. Ginny fought against the urge to pull away from her and instead held her ground. “You left so quickly after…” Hermione shook her head. “I didn’t get a chance to explain, to… to tell you what happened with Ron.”

Ginny’s heart fell out of her chest, all the way through her stomach, and hit the floor. She swallowed thickly. “Right,” she said, nodding once quickly, hoping that if she blinked fast enough she could stop her tears from falling. “Well, congratulations, I suppose.”

Hermione quirked her head, visibly confused, but Ginny was having a hard time looking her in the eye, so she couldn’t exactly be sure of Hermione’s expression. “Congratulations for what?”

“You and Ron,” Ginny said simply. “Back together. The plan worked, I take it?”

Hermione shook her head. “No, Ginny, there’s… He was just apologizing for the past few months. We aren’t—”

“That was the point of this whole thing, you know,” Ginny said quickly, cutting her off, desperate for this conversation to end. She wasn’t sure she could bear to stand and listen to Hermione tell her she was back with Ron. She wasn’t sure she could make it through that kind of reveal, that kind of conversation. She wasn’t sure she could stand around and listen to Hermione tell her she was in love with someone else. At least, not if she was meant to keep a straight face through it all. She was already halfway to hexing something into oblivion, and she had barely let Hermione get a word in edgewise. She wasn’t sure what her reaction would be if she let Hermione get the rest of her sentence out. “You don’t have to explain it to me. I understand. And I’m happy for you, you know.”

Hermione blinked at her, expression curiously vacant. “You… you are?”

“Course,” Ginny said through a thick throat, fingers thumbing the parchment with her littered confessions of love, thinking _I’m too late I’m too late I’m too late I’m too late._ “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.” Hermione shook her head. “I thought… I thought maybe…” She took a deep, steadying breath, and clenched her hands into fists as if bracing for a punch. “I thought maybe you might have feelings. For me, that is.”

Ginny’s eyes snapped to hers, wide and panicked. “Who told you that?”

“No one _told me_ anything, Ginny, I just thought—”

“Well, you’re wrong. I don’t have… I don’t. It’s fine. I won’t get in the way of you and Ron.” Her voice cracked around her brother’s name and Ginny flinched away from the sound, away from the tears she felt burning at the corners of her eyes.

She couldn’t look at Hermione. She _couldn’t_. The fear and the panic and the pounding heat of humiliation were already thrumming up inside of her, climbing through her throat like bile, and she thought she might be sick, if she had to stay here any longer.

Hermione reached out a hand to her, imploringly. “Ginny, please—”

But Ginny shook her head and backed away, feeling a storm of tumultuous energy rippling through her chest. She felt light-headed and queasy and dizzy and this whole thing was completely _unfair_ , that she never got to tell Hermione on her own terms, that Hermione figured out how Ginny felt about her and now she was here to let her down easy and _Merlin, Hermione knew how she **felt**_. “I don’t really want to get into this right now, Hermione. Please, can you just... can you…” She broke off as her voice cracked again on the last few words. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, turning her head towards her own shoulder to try and hide the way her lip quivered.

“Ginny…” Hermione whispered, and it broke something in her.

Ginny couldn’t help herself. She rounded on her heel and strode forward, moving rapidly across the floor. Hermione startled and fell a few stumbling steps backward until her back collided with the classroom door.

Ginny pressed into her and claimed Hermione’s lips with her own with a searing kiss that seemed to encompass her entire being.

Hermione immediately arched into the touch, her back bending off and away from the dark wood, chest pressed tight to Ginny’s as her fingers fisted into smooth red hair. Ginny’s hands scrambled for purchase on Hermione’s waist, fingers digging in so tightly that she thought that Hermione would almost certainly bruise from the contact. But the thought was exhilarating in an unexpected way (a way to mark her a way to stake her claim), and so Ginny’s hold on Hermione’s sides only tightened. Hermione whimpered at the unexpected pressure, painful yet pleasurable at the same time, the sound muffled against Ginny’s lips.

It spurred something in Ginny, something low and thick in her stomach, and she surged forward, slamming Hermione back into the door in a move that forced all of the air out of Hermione’s lungs and left her weak at the knees.

She gasped and fought for breath, even as Ginny’s teeth clamped down _hard_ on her lower lip, biting and abusing the flesh. Ginny tasted blood.

She loved it.

Hermione moaned again, this time a little louder and a little more breathless, and Ginny pulled away. Hermione opened her mouth to protest the lack of contact only for Ginny to latch her teeth onto the skin right above her collarbone. Hermione gasped again and seemed to sink into the pain, revelling in it. “Ginny,” she whimpered, her voice barely a whisper, yet it echoed like gun shot in the empty room. It was enough to make Ginny recoil from her as if she’d been burned.

Ginny pulled away from Hermione at once, disentangling herself in a messy tangle of limbs and haphazard movements until they were no longer touching. Ginny’s heart pounded in her chest as her stomach began to tighten with the sinking realization of of exactly where she was and exactly what she was doing.

Ginny stood frozen, panting, her eyes wide and terrified as she took in the image in front of her. Hermione breathless, Hermione leaning against the door to the classroom, Hermione with her already bushy hair now messily expanded, Hermione with her tie loose and crooked around her neck, with her uniform skirt riding high on her thighs, looking absolutely, deliciously dishevelled.

Ginny was nothing short of horrified. “I’m…” She stuttered, shaking her head quickly. “I have to…” And then she was gone, brushing past Hermione and sliding out into the hallway, heart in her throat and ready to run until she disappeared off into the Forbidden Forest, never to be seen again.

“Oh no you don’t,” Hermione called from somewhere behind her. Ginny just tucked her hair behind her ears and walked faster, fidgeting with sweaty palms with the wand in her pocket. “You can’t just _kiss me_ like that and run away!” Hermione shouted, and Ginny picked up the pace of her walking every so slightly so that now she was jogging on lanky legs. But she could still hear Hermione chasing after her. “You can’t _do_ _that_ , Ginny.” Hermione’s breathing was coming more laboured now, as she struggled to catch up to the other girl. “Ginny stop _running_ , for fuck’s sake,” she finally huffed, grabbing Ginny by the back of her robes and dragging her to an unsteady stop. Hermione glared at her, eyes bright and wild. “You _know_ I can’t keep up with you.”

Ginny just shook her head, completely ashamed, her gaze downcast to the floor. “I’m sorry, Hermione,” she mumbled, halfway to tears already, feeling sick with guilt and anxiety and mortification. “I’m _so_ sorry. I know I shouldn’t have done that. I know you don’t want—”

“Don’t _tell me_ what I want,” Hermione half-shouted, shaking Ginny by the shoulders, her face flushed with anger. “You have no _idea_ what I want, because you won’t _talk to_ me for longer than twenty seconds. If you would just _listen_ to me, if you’d just _listen_ to what I’m telling you and stop being an absolute _git,_ you’d _know_!”

“I don’t need you to let me down easy, Hermione,” Ginny said, pulling her shoulders out of Hermione’s grip, a little put-out by the display of anger. Hermione was the one who was breaking _her_ heart, not the other way round. “You’re patching things up with Ron and I… I shouldn’t have kissed you like that, I just—”

“God, Ginny. You’re _such_ an idiot,” Hermione growled. “You drive me absolutely up the wall. I honestly can’t _stand you_ , sometimes.”

Ginny bristled under Hermione’s glare. “Well no one’s _asking_ you to—”

But Hermione cut her off immediately, still visibly fuming. “You run so hot and cold, Ginny. It’s impossible to even _talk_ to you sometimes. You change your mind about everything, you’re indecisive, you’re a _terrible_ listener, you _never_ take the time to consider what other people want, and you can’t hold _anything_ close to a meaningful conversation about your feelings!”

“Well… well you’re no better!” Ginny shouted, feeling her own wave of anger swell inside of her. “Everything’s all _logic_ and _reasoning_ with you. You bury yourself in work so you don’t have to deal with other people, you strut around like you know everything, like… like you’re better than all the rest of us just because you read more _books_ than the rest of school combined. You’re a control freak. You need everything to be _perfect_ and _just so_ and it’s _infuriating_.”

Hermione clenched her fists. “I can’t _believe_ I fancy you!” She muttered through a twitching jaw. “Honestly, you’re completely mad, and I _swear_ you’re worse than Ron sometimes. Why I bother with anyone in your _ridiculous_ family, I’ll never—”

“You what?” It took Ginny nearly a full ten seconds for the weight of Hermione’s words to hit her, but as soon as they did, all the fight went out of her immediately. She stared at Hermione, mouth agape, eyes wide and disbelieving. “You _fancy_ me?” She asked, her heart beating a staccato rhythm in her chest, her pulse pounding in her ears in anticipation of the answer.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “ _Obviously_ , Ginny. I’ve been trying to tell you for _weeks_ now. If you had bothered to talk to me _at all_ , you would have—”

“Wait,” Ginny held up her hands and shook her head. “Wait, _what_? You… but… But what about _Ron_?”

“And there’s another thing,” Hermione said with a huff, pulling at her tie in an attempt to make it lie flat against her throat. “You don’t _listen to me_ when I talk to you. It’s bloody awful. I’ve been trying to tell you for _months_ that I had _no_ interest in winning your brother back. This whole _stupid_ plan was _your_ idea, and I never even wanted any part of it. But do you hear me when I talk to you? No, of course you don’t.”

“I think… I think I have to sit down,” Ginny said, just as her knees buckled underneath her. Hermione caught her around the waist with a practiced ease and helped her stagger over to the wall. Ginny leaned against the cold stone heavily, feeling eternally grateful for the strength of the castle walls. She felt a little sick, a little queasy, a little dizzy, and more than a little confused. She kept shaking her head back and forth, as if the movement would help make clear any of the information Hermione was thrusting her way.

Hermione was talking about all of this like it was _obvious_ , like it was _nothing_ , like Ginny _hadn’t_ spent the past six or so odd months in something close to an existential crisis about her burgeoning feelings for her best friend. “I don’t…” She muttered quietly, her hands fisting tight into Hermione’s robes. “I don’t understand.” She looked up at Hermione’s face, which was suddenly much softer, much kinder, much more understanding. She kept an arm around Ginny’s waist, ostensibly to help secure her, but which — as Ginny was coming to realise — probably had more to do with the fact that she wanted to keep contact between them than anything else. “You and… you and Ron aren’t…?”

Hermione shook her head. “We aren’t _anything_ , Ginny,” she said softly, using her spare hand to brush at the side of Ginny’s jaw, her fingers ghosting against warm skin. “I think…” She said slowly, like she was weighing her words. “I think Ron and I were never meant to be a romantic couple. I thought, once, that we…” She shook her head. “But it never would have worked out. I loved him, and I _still_ love him, don’t get me wrong. But I always…” She sighed and withdrew, pulling her body away from Ginny’s so they now stood several feet apart. Ginny watched her careful even as she leaned heavily against the rough stone, afraid of making any sudden movements, afraid to even _breathe_ too loudly, lest their tentative ceasefire recommence.

“I’ve loved Harry and Ron since First Year,” Hermione continued, arms wrapped around her own stomach. “I _know_ that I have. But I’ve always loved them differently. Harry he… he’s like a brother to me. He’s my _best friend_ and I love him like he’s family, but I’ve never been _attracted_ to him or… romantically interested in him and I just… I don’t know. It’s always felt _different_ , with Ron. I’ve always loved him but it’s always been… there’s always been something… _awkward_ there, maybe? Maybe I was holding back, or maybe _he_ was, maybe he was nervous around me or didn’t know how to really be my friend, and maybe I fed off of that energy? Or maybe I didn’t know how to act around him because I’d never _known_ someone like Ron before. I’d never… I’d never met a family like yours, before. And I guess I figured… well I _knew_ I loved Harry, and I knew I loved Ron, and since I knew I loved them differently I think I assumed that it was because I was _in love_ with Ron. Not because my relationships with the two of them were different.”

The hall they were standing in was still miraculously, magically empty, save for the pair of them. Ginny had no clear understanding of how long they must have been standing around talking, but it felt like an eternity. She couldn’t really figure out how no one else had walked past them yet. Probably because she was supposed to be somewhere, probably off in some class or other at this point, but she couldn’t make herself budge from her current spot against the wall, couldn’t bother herself to feel the need to be anywhere but right here.

“I…” Ginny cleared her throat and shook her head. “You’ve never explained… you never said _any_ of this. Why?”

Hermione smiled, a little sadly. “Because I didn’t know how. The whole time Ron and I were dating I was fighting to see him as _more_ than just my best friend. When we spent time together it would be amazing, but I never wanted to see him any more than I wanted to see anyone else. And it…” She ran a hand through her wild hair, as if taming it would somehow make it easier for her to speak. “I don’t know. I think he could tell? That I wasn’t… that I didn’t feel what he did. Because he started getting kind of angry with me, and arguing with me about everything, and lashing out, and…” She sighed again, tension in her shoulders and her head bowed low, looking immeasurably sad. “I don’t know,” she repeated quietly. It was a rare sight for Hermione Granger to admit to not knowing something, and she’d already done so about four times in this one conversation. Ginny didn’t know what to do except stand there and watch her and listen while she tried to explain.

It was a short moment before Hermione brushed at her eyes and straightened her shoulders again. “I ended things, eventually,” she said, her tone becoming more confident. “And Ron, he didn’t… take it well. To put it kindly.” A short pause, a short intake of breath, before she continued quickly: “I thought I loved him. I _really_ did. But only a few months in and I knew it would never work out. I loved him, but not the way he wanted me to. I wanted him in my life so _badly_ , but I knew that if we kept doing what we were trying to do it would only end up hurting us both even more. So I ended things.”

“But…” Ginny spluttered, her mind racing with a million and a half different thoughts. “But what about all the _pining_? The… the _misery_ and letting-yourself-go-ness from the beginning of term? You were… you seemed _heartbroken_.”

Hermione shook her head. “No I was… I was sad, obviously. Sad because for how much we didn’t work as a couple, your brother is still one of my best friends. And I knew that I had hurt him, and he was hurting me by being angry and by not talking to me. So I was _sad_ , but I wasn’t _heartbroken_.”

“But, you…” Ginny pressed herself off from the wall finally, the movement taking her to within only an arms-length of Hermione. “You agreed to pretend to date me!” She hissed, bending her head slightly and glancing up and down the corridor to ensure they were still alone. “Why would you—”

“I wasn’t lying when I said I missed him,” Hermione cut her off. “But I never… I never cared about making him _jealous_. I didn’t _want_ to make him jealous. But then you kissed me, and you concocted this whole elaborate plan, and I _didn’t_ want to go along with it, but… well I _had_ thought… I did wonder if, you know… if we’d both moved on if he would consider talking to me again.”

“That’s why you were so furious after I kissed you,” Ginny said quietly, like a revelation, the evidence finally coming together in her head. “I thought it was because I was a girl. But it wasn’t that at all.”

Hermione nodded, something close to a smile finally tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You know I _did_ try to tell you. You just didn’t want to believe me.”

Ginny rubbed the heels of her palms over her eyes, pressing down hard enough so that coloured starbursts exploded behind her eyelids. “Merlin, I’m daft,” she muttered. That finally got Hermione to laugh. When Ginny pulled her hands from her face she was smiling too, a wide and hopeful thing. Her chest felt lighter than it had in months. Her hands trembled with the adrenaline of jubilation.

Hermione took a step closer, so that the toes of her shoes brushed against Ginny’s. She pushed her fingers through Ginny’s hair, tucking the loose strands behind her ear. “Well,” she murmured, eyes fixed on Ginny’s lips, “that’s me all sorted. Now it’s your turn. Why did you want to pretend to date me?”

“Because…” Ginny said, her pulse fluttering distractedly in response to the way Hermione’s fingers were brushing the skin behind her ear. “To make Ron jealous. To… to get back at him for Lavender.” Hermione’s fingers pulled a little tighter on her hair, an obvious sign of her lack of satisfaction with Ginny’s answer. She swallowed thickly and tried again. “To help you out. I don’t know.”

Hermione shook her head. “No. That doesn’t make sense. Why did you do it _really_?”

“I… well… well you _know_ the answer already, don’t you?”

Hermione pressed up on the balls of her feet, brushing her nose against Ginny’s, letting the quiet anticipation between them build to a dizzying degree. “Tell me,” she whispered, breath hot against Ginny’s lips. “Please.”

Ginny swallowed again. “Because I’m crazy about you, Hermione,” she admitted softly, under her breath. “I fancy you. And I saw the opportunity to help you out, to get back at my brother, and… and I took advantage of the situation. Selfishly. Because I’m a terrible person.”

“You aren’t a terrible person,” Hermione whispered, bringing her other hand to rest at Ginny’s waist, fingers twisted tightly in dark fabric. They were both breathing heavily now, from the sensation of being so close for so long. “Far from it.”

“I can’t believe we could have sorted this _months_ ago. If I’d have just _listened_ —”

Hermione shook her head. “If I’d tried harder to _make_ you listen—”

Ginny squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Fuck, I’ve fancied you for _years_. And to think we could have—”

Hermione pressed their foreheads together almost painfully, almost desperately. “You never said—”

“ _You_ never said!” Ginny shot back. “Merlin, why do you think I was so pissed when you started dating Ron?”

“I… didn’t really think about—”

But Ginny, impatient and out of breath and aching and happy (so unbelievably happy), could wait no longer. She tangled her fingers in Hermione’s hair. “Shut up and kiss me,” she demanded.

“I can’t _believe_ —”

“Hermione _kiss_ me.”

And she did.

**

They kissed for a very long time, bodies pressed tight against each other in an empty corridor somewhere on the third floor. They kissed and kissed and kissed, only stopping to break into short, disbelieving fits of laughter before Hermione’s hands found her hair again and Ginny’s hands found her waist and they once again found themselves occupied by more pleasant tasks.

When they could no longer convince themselves that they could reasonably spend an afternoon necking where they were bound to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris or — Merlin forbid, _Peeves_ — Hermione pressed one last fierce kiss to Ginny’s lips and pushed her off in the direction of the Common Room.

And as much as she wished she could spend the entire afternoon snogging Hermione against every vertical and/or horizontal surface she could find, Ginny knew she couldn’t put off talking to Ron any longer.

Lucky for her, she didn’t have to look far. And all it took was one quick glare in Lavender’s direction before she had her brother all to herself. She shoved his feet off the ottoman by the fire and sank into it, arms crossed defensively over her chest.

Ron eyed her warily. “What are you after, then?”

“Hermione made me promise to come talk to you,” Ginny said by way of explanation, still feeling a bit irrationally hostile. (Just because she had agreed to come talk to him didn’t mean she had to be pleasant about it all. He was still a right git most of the time. She would treat him accordingly.) “She said you had something to say to me.”

Ron grinned. “The two of you have made up, then?” He asked, and Ginny bit hard on the inside of her lip, but it wasn’t enough to stop the blush that rose high in her cheeks.

“Yes,” she said softly, her posture loosening just a bit, unable to hide her smile very well. “We’ve… made up.”

Ron’s grin grew wider. “Brilliant, Gin,” he said, and it was a little surprising how sincere he seemed. “That’s really brilliant.”

Ginny allowed herself a few more brief moments of unbridled joy before she remembered why she was here. She cleared her throat and leaned back a little, eyeing Ron closely. “So,” she said when Ron didn’t seem to want to speak, “ _do_ you have something to say to me?”

He nodded, pushing his books to the side. “Yes. Right. I do have. Just let me, um…” He started rifling through the book bag at his feet, pulling loose bits of parchment, crumbled notes, and a half-dozen broken quills from its depths. Ginny watched him struggle as his hands pushed and pulled at the items within his bag.

After about thirty seconds of this, Ron huffed and straightened again. “Sorry,” he apologized, frowning down at the pile of refuse at his feet. “Sorry, I… I wrote down what… I had some things I wanted to say, so I wrote them down so I wouldn’t forget, but I can’t find…” He bent again towards the floor, fingers flipping through scraps of paper as if he hoped his notes would have appeared just by will.

Ginny fought the urge to roll her eyes. “You don’t need to read me a planned speech, Ronald,” she said with a long sigh. “Just say what you wanted to say so I can go to dinner.”

Ron turned his frown to her, next. “This is serious, Ginny,” he said. “I’m trying to—”

“Well _I’m_ trying to eat, at some point. So.” She tapped at her wrist, indicating that he should hurry along.

Ron actually _did_ roll his eyes at that, but he left his bag abandoned on the floor, and instead turned his attention to her fully. He took a deep breath, rubbed his palms against the knees of his trousers like he was drying them, and levelled his shoulders. He then looked her dead in the eye and asked, “Do you remember your first year?”

Ginny sighed. “Ron…”

“No, Ginny, shut up, please. Just… just shut it for five minutes. I want to say something, I… I’ve been _trying_ to say something for months now. Just… just let me get it out.” She folded her arms over her chest and sank back into her seat but did as he asked and kept her mouth shut. She had promised Hermione, after all. And given everything that had happened between them over the past few months, she had to (reluctantly) admit that she did _at least_ owe him the chance to explain himself.

Ron smiled at her gratefully, straightened his spine, and started again. “D’you remember your first year?”

Ginny scratched at her jaw. “Not really, no.”

Apparently Ron didn’t need her to cooperate in order to say his piece, because he soldiered on with hardly a pause. “Okay,” he said, placating, “well _I_ do. I remember it. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember when you were taken. I remember reading those words on the wall, seeing the blood, and thinking it was yours.” As he spoke, Ginny’s arms unfurled from her body, her shoulders lost their tension, and she felt all traces of the now-familiar animosity dissipate within her chest. She watched her brother speak with such honesty and such unabashed emotion that if she weren’t sitting right in front of him watching the words fall from his mouth, she probably never would have believed him capable of creating them.

Ron spoke calmly, confidently, as if he had practised his speech in front of his mirror twenty times that morning. But it didn’t make the words any less poignant. “I remember begging Harry to save you,” he said, “to bring you back from the Chamber alive. I remember waiting for him next to a pile of rocks and not knowing where he was, where _you_ were, if I would ever see either of you again… I _remember_ it, Ginny. I remember all of it.” He paused for a moment, his eyes looking off into some distant past Ginny could not see. “I was so _scared_ , down there. I think it’s the most terrified I’ve ever been, and, you know… I’ve been attacked by a _werewolf_. My rat turned into a mass-murderer. I almost got eaten by _brains_ last year. But… none of it was the same as that. Twelve years old, and I’ve never been so afraid.”

It took him a few seconds before he was able to shake his head, rid himself of those past ghosts, and continue speaking. “But do you know?” He said when he finally turned his attention back to her. “I think that _that’s_ the last time I was a good brother to you. Honestly. When Harry got you out… and when Mum and Dad came to see you in hospital… I don’t think you ever looked smaller. And I remember thinking, _Merlin, what happened to her down there? How did she make it out? How did she survive? Why couldn’t I have kept her safe?_ ” He took an unsteady breath. “I was your big brother. I was supposed to keep you safe.”

Ginny blinked a few rapid times, startled to find that her cheeks were damp. At some point she had started crying, and she hadn’t even noticed. “Ron, I…” She started to say, but trailed off, at a total loss for words.

Ron just smiled at her. He put his hand over hers where it rested on her knee and kept talking like she had never interrupted him. “But that’s not the only thing I thought. The second we got you out of there, it’s like… it’s like I completely shut down. I _resented_ you for everything that had happened, for Hermione being in hospital, for Harry almost dying, for all those kids being attacked… And it wasn’t _your_ fault, of course it wasn’t, but… but I was twelve, you know? I was twelve, and how could I know any better?” He shook his head and withdrew his hand. “And then for the entire summer after, it was like you were the only thing anybody cared about. I was thirteen and it just… Bill and Charlie came _home_ for you. I don’t know if you remember or not, but that was a pretty big deal for us then, ‘cause they hadn’t been home except at Christmas for _ages_. And Fred and George let you take part in their jokes, and we _finally_ let you into our Quidditch game, and Mum was always checking on you while you slept, and Dad brought you to work with him because he was afraid of letting you out of his sight for too long, and it was… I don’t know. Maybe they _always_ spoiled you, because you were the only girl, or maybe they spoiled _me_ like that, too. But I just remember it being all about you.”

As he spoke, those long-forgotten memories of a summer long since passed returned to Ginny slowly. The feeling of being surrounded constantly, of never being allowed on her own. The feeling of finally being accepted as part of her own family, as just another sibling, as an almost-equal to all of her brothers, separated only by age rather than gender. The feeling of finally belonging. The feeling of constant attention and warmth and near-devotion. Bill throwing her over his shoulder, Charlie teaching her flight patterns in the backyard, Percy letting her wander around with his Head Boy badge pinned brightly to her robes.

She had never connected the two occasions before, never really put together that the sudden change in the way everyone treated her that summer was due almost entirely to the trauma she had experienced in her first year. She never really understood the way her dad used to hold on to her shoulder with a vice-like grip whenever he led her through the London streets, never really understood why she would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to her mum stroking her hair softly, never really understood the way Bill and Charlie would watch her closely as she flew around the backyard, like she was sure to crash unless they were there to catch her.

She never really understood. Not until now.

Ron kept speaking. “That’s the summer that I stopped being a good brother to you. When we went back to school, when you couldn’t make friends because of what happened the year before, when you wanted to try out for Quidditch, when you had that crush on Harry, I just… I didn’t do what I should have done. I wasn’t a good brother. I _haven’t been_ a good brother,” he quickly amended.

Ginny didn’t know how to tell him that it was _fine_ , that it didn’t _matter_ , that it probably _helped_ in the long-run that he was the only one who refused to baby her, the only one who kept treating her like she was his annoying younger sister and not like she was the girl who had almost killed the entire school. She didn’t know how to tell him that what he regarded as cruelty she regarded as kindness, as a willingness to see her as she always was, not as who she briefly became.

She didn’t say any of that. Not now. She probably would, at some point in the future, but right now she thought Ron needed to talk more than she needed to reassure him. So she kept quiet, and decided to let him finish.

“And then,” he said, running a hand through his already-messy hair, “when Hermione and I broke up and she started seeing _you_ I was just… I was so _jealous_. Not because… not because of the reason you think. Not because of her. It was just… it felt like for most of our lives you got _everything_. You _always_ got everything. You got my friends and you got our brothers and you got on the Quidditch team without even trying that hard and you got Mum and Dad’s full attention and you got the grades and the Slug Club invitation and… And then here was _one more thing_ that you were taking from me, that you got to have and I didn’t because you were the special one and the one who got coddled and—”

“Hermione isn’t a thing to _have_ , Ron,” Ginny interrupted, her defensive nature not letting her stay quiet on this particular matter.

But Ron just waved her off. “No, shut up, I _know_ that. That’s not what I’m saying. I just… I’ve been a _prat_ , Ginny. And I didn’t even understand _why_ I was doing it. I forgot you had been tortured and possessed, forgot you almost died, forgot that Mum spoiled me just as much as you, forgot that you got picked on and teased by Fred and George just as much as me. Forgot the reasons Hermione decided to end things. Forgot that there’s _so much_ about you that so many people love that it really makes sense she would fall for you. It’s just—”

“You can stop rambling, you git,” Ginny cut him off with a wet laugh and a sniff and a hand on his arm. “I understand what you’re saying.”

Ron’s shoulders buckled as his face collapsed in relief. He smiled at her with an expression that hinted at his timid hope. “You do?” He asked quietly.

Ginny smiled back and nodded. “You aren’t very eloquent, Ron.” She paused for a short moment, eyeing him closely, before conceding: “But you have your moments sometimes.”

Ron exhaled loudly, his smile growing with each passing second. He gripped both of her hands in his own tightly, holding onto her like he was afraid to let go. “I want to make this up to you,” he said determinedly. “I’m gonna work to make this all up to you.”

Ginny shrugged. “You won’t have to work very hard, Ron. I mean I’m equally at fault. I was being just as big of a prat as you.”

“Yeah, well, at least yours was justified.”

She leaned across the table and punched his shoulder lightly. “You’re my brother, you idiot. We’re supposed to have each other’s backs. You’re supposed to want to protect me and I’m supposed to get embarrassed by you. But I love you, you know. I love you through it all. Even when you’re being a complete arse.”

He squeezed her hand with his, his fingers large wrapped around her own. “And I love you, even when you’re being a right bitch.”

Ginny grinned. “Glad we’re in agreement.”

Maybe things weren’t perfect. Maybe there were a lot of feelings and emotions still to work through. Maybe she still needed to have a few long, arduous conversations with Hermione where they _actually_ spoke about what they were feeling, about what they _had been_ feeling, about the past few months of confusion and miscommunication. Maybe she still needed to find some way to tell Ron that she’d been lying to him for months. Maybe she would never really be able to get her head around exactly how _pretending-to-be-in-love_ had turned into _actually-being-in-love._ Maybe she still needed to write her mum that apology letter. Maybe she should reach out to Fleur and extend an olive branch of sorts. Maybe she still needed to pass her OWLs.

But Hermione was waiting for her out by the lake, her cheeks darkened by the wind chill, her hair tucked into her scarf, her eyes bright with laughter and easy, uncomplicated happiness. Her brother was talking to her again and Harry was shooting her a thumbs-up from across the Common Room and Hermione was waiting for her, down by the lake. So maybe things weren’t _perfect_ , but they _were_ pretty damn good

And at this point, she would take ‘pretty damn good’ over just about anything else in the world.

**


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _8 years later._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, you guys. Thank you all for sticking with me through this long wait. I first posted this story nearly 2 years ago (incredible to think about that) and I know that I make you wait months between chapters, but it’s really meant a lot to me that you’ve continued to read, comment, and give kudos to this work. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> I’m posting this at like 4:30 in the morning, which is inopportune in terms of getting new people to actually see and read it, but I’m hoping you all will like waking up to the update.
> 
> If you want to talk, come find me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/).

**

“Are you excited, Hermione?” Harry asked from his position in front of her as he pulled her scarf a little tighter around her neck.

Hermione bit her lip. “I don’t know if I’d call it _excited_ ,” she said carefully, only about 30% serious.

“Why not? Our girl is about to make history.”

“It’s hardly _history_ , Harry. It’s just Quidditch.”

Harry scoffed and used the ends of her scarf to hit her lightly on the nose. “Now I _know_ you don’t believe that. First all-women’s team to make the Quidditch World Cup? That’s something that’ll be written about in the next volume of _A History of Magic_ , you mark my words _._ ”

“Bringing up my favourite book, are you? Trying to butter me up before the match?”

Harry grinned. “Not at all. Just trying to get you to share my excitement.”

The thing was, Hermione was excited, too. And despite how she made it appear when she was talking to Harry, she _did_ believe that the game today was going to be historic. But over many years she had sort of built a reputation among their friends as being the one among them who _really_ couldn’t stand Quidditch. And she wasn’t about to let that go easily. Hence, the teasing.

And in all fairness, she _did_ still think it was a ridiculous game, but it was a ridiculous game Ginny was passionate about, and so Hermione was passionate about it too. In her own way.

If nothing else, she was practically exploding with pride.

But instead of answering him, Hermione just cleared her throat, and asked, “Are we meeting Ron and Lavender there, then?”

Harry nodded. “And Neville and Luna, too.”

Hermione fiddled with her wand, her leg bouncing against the kitchen table where she sat. Harry moved around the room, collecting the last few items he thought he would need (a flag, his wand, some extra face paint, a few scarves). Hermione spoke after a few beats in the silence. “You know my parents wanted to come?”

Harry laughed as he ran a few apples under the tap. “Why didn’t you bring them?”

“Dad had a conference he couldn’t get out of, but my mum sends her love and assures me that the Harpies are going to win it all.”

Harry laughed again as he placed the apples in his shoulder bag. He gestured with his head towards the door even as he teased: “It’s sweet that she pretends to understand Quidditch.”

“You leave my mother alone, Harry Potter; _I_ don’t even understand Quidditch.”

“Your mother _loves_ when I tease her. She has a wonderful sense of humour.” Hermione rolled her eyes. “C’mon now, up up.” He came around behind her and pushed at her shoulders, urging her to stand. “We’re going to be late.”

Hermione rolled her eyes again but allowed him to hurry her towards the door. “We’re going to be three hours early, Harry.”

“Well, I want good seats.”

“We have an entire box reserved.”

Harry groaned. “Ugh, _Hermione_. Let me have my fun! I painted my face and everything!”

“Yes,” she agreed with a small laugh. “Green really brings out your eyes, you know.”

Harry bounced a little on his feet as Hermione locked the door to her flat behind her. “C’mon, Hermione,” he said, taking her by the arm. “Let’s go cheer on your wife.”

**

Despite the fact that Harry had insisted they arrive at a ridiculously early hour, by the time they finally entered the stadium the crowd was already significantly-sized and humming with excitement. Hermione slipped her gloved hand into the crook of Harry’s arm to ensure they would not get separated in the crushing tide of bodies.

Harry squinted through his glasses at the ticket stubs in his hand. “Right, this way, I think,” he said, gesturing towards a nearby staircase. He shot Hermione a boisterous smile as he led her towards their section. “And if I know anything at all about the Weasleys, I’d bet my hat that they’re already here.”

Hermione chuckled. “George and Angelina probably camped here overnight.”

“I think they did. Ron told me Charlie joined them, too.”

Yes, that quite sounded like the Weasleys. For all that Ginny’s brothers loved to tease her, they were fiercely protective and immensely proud of their younger sister. She was the only member of the family to ever actually turn her Quidditch playing into a professional career, and the Weasley men enjoyed nothing more than to brag about her at every turn. Right after Ginny got signed by the Harpies, George hung a gigantic animated poster of her up in the front window of his shop, stretching nearly twenty feet from floor to ceiling. Ginny tried to hex it down on more than a few occasions, but George absolutely refused to get rid of it. (It was now tucked away in storage, somewhere in the Burrow. George pulled it out every year at Ginny’s birthday.) And as much as Ginny liked to moan about how over-involved her older brothers were in her career, Hermione knew that secretly it thrilled her. She was a mini-celebrity in their family, and she quietly revelled in the attention.

“Professor Potter!” A voice suddenly called from somewhere in the crowd. Harry turned, and a warm smile overtook his face at the sight that greeted him. An excited girl — no older than sixteen or seventeen, by Hermione’s estimation — appeared in front of them, bounding in their direction, her eyes bright and her arm waving excitedly.

“Amelia!” Harry grinned and stuck out his hand for her to take. She did so, gripping it and shaking enthusiastically. “So nice to see you! Are you enjoying your break?”

“Oh yes, sir,” she said, nodding quickly. “It’s been brilliant.”

“Excellent. Happy to hear it.” He shook his head, a little bemused. “I must admit, I didn’t think I would run into any of my students, here. Forgive the—” he gestured to his painted face— “ _this_. Not my finest hour.”

Amelia laughed. “Don’t worry, Professor. I won’t tell the others.”

Harry chuckled, too. “No, I suppose you won’t.” He turned his attention to Hermione, who had been smiling in polite ignorance next to him. “Hermione,” he said by means of introduction, “this is Amelia Carr. She’s about to start her seventh year.”

“Lovely to meet you,” Hermione said, taking the girl’s hand and shaking it politely.

“You too, ma’am.”

Harry looked on with a kind smile. “Amelia is one of my most promising students, you know. _And_ , if I’m not mistaken, she was just named Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team.”

Amelia flushed a deep crimson, clearly glowing with pride. “I was, yeah.”

“Did you know,” Hermione offered with a teasing nudge to Harry’s arm, “Harry here was Quidditch Captain when he was at Hogwarts, too?”

“Oh, we all know about Professor Potter’s Quidditch career. Youngest player in a century, wasn’t it?”

“Alright now, alright. Enough of that.” Harry waved them both off. “You should go and find your friends, Amelia. You’ll want to watch the pre-game performances, I reckon.”

She nodded and smiled. “I will, yeah. It was lovely to see you, Professor. Can’t wait until start of term. And lovely to meet you too, Mrs. Potter.”

Harry and Hermione both laughed. Amelia frowned in confusion. “Oh no, no we aren’t married.” Hermione said, still chuckling slightly.

Amelia immediately adopted the kind of panicked shame that can only come from a child thinking she has insulted a mentor. “Oh!” She exclaimed. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I just assumed…”

Hermione shook her head. “It’s quite alright. Happens all the time.”

“It really does,” Harry supplied.

“But I’m afraid it wasn’t meant to be.”

“Yes, Hermione broke my heart when we were very young. Never quite got over the pain.”

Hermione smacked him on the shoulder. “He’s only joking,” she said, turning her attention back to the girl who was looking at them with polite yet slightly wary confusion. “We’re actually here to see my wife.” Hermione eyed the girl’s green scarf, and the pin on the collar of her robes. She would recognize that insignia anywhere, as she saw it nearly every day when Ginny dressed for her morning practise. “She actually plays for the Harpies.”

Amelia’s eyes widened as recognition suddenly dawned on her face. “Oh my God,” she whispered, colouring slightly. “You… you’re Hermione Granger, aren’t you? You’re married to Ginny Weasley?”

Hermione nodded. “Indeed I am.”

Amelia squealed. “Oh, but she’s my favourite player! Oh my God I have like four of her kits!”

Hermione laughed. “Oh, you better not tell her that; she already has a big enough ego. Her head will be too big to fit through our front door at this rate.”

“Oh my God. Wow, I can’t believe… _wow_.” Amelia grew suddenly and inexplicably stricken. “Oh no…” She whispered. “ _Please_ don’t tell her that I acted like a complete ninny in front of you. That would be _so_ humiliating.”

Hermione bit her lip to stifle a laugh. “I promise I will tell her only good things.” She paused a moment, a twinkle growing in her eye. “Tell you what… you tell me where I can send an owl, and I’ll have Ginny send along some of her merch, if you want. Posters and the like. Free of charge.”

Amelia looked nearly ready to faint. “Oh, would you really?”

“It would be my pleasure. Always want to encourage young athletes, and all.”

Amelia squealed again and leapt forward, sweeping Hermione into an engulfing hug. Hermione started, but returned the embrace nonetheless. “Thank you so much, Ms. Granger,” Amelia said, pulling away and beginning to rifle through her bag. “I can’t tell you what this means… wow, wait until I tell the others about this. They won’t _believe_ it.”

She pulled out a ballpoint pen, which caused Hermione to eye her curiously. “Are you Muggle-born?” She asked, as politely as she could without revealing her acute interest.

The girl nodded, pulling a sheet of notebook paper from her bag. “I also have a little sister who just got her letter a few weeks ago,” she said, hurriedly scribbling down an address.

“I can just send you the package in the post, then,” Hermione said, trying to hide her surprise at meeting a young, female, Muggle-born, Slytherin Quidditch Captain who was gifted and kind enough for Harry to rave about her academic prowess (Hogwarts certainly _had_ changed since they had been students). “Might be better for your parents.”

“You’re really too kind, Ms. Granger.”

Hermione waved her off. “You can call me Hermione. Ms. Granger makes me sound like my mum.”

Amelia nodded again, passing the paper to Hermione’s outstretched hand. “Thank you so much, Hermione.”

“It’s honestly my pleasure.”

“Well, I hate to cut our conversation short,” Harry interjected, glancing at his watch. “But we better be off now, Amelia. And you better find your friends.”

“I will, thank you, Professor. Thank you, again.” She dashed away, and Harry and Hermione turned away from her and towards the staircase, which was getting steadily busier the further up they climbed.

“That was nice of you,” Harry said quietly, as they waded their way through the throng of fans — many sporting a similar amount of team apparel as the two of them. “You don’t usually volunteer your wife’s merchandise for free to young fans.”

Hermione shrugged. “She’s a good kid. Besides, Ginny will get a kick out of it. She always loves meeting fans — especially ones who play. I think it’s the only reason she actually decided to play Quidditch professionally. She’s never really been _adored_ before.”

“Well… this is certainly the right crowd for it.”

Harry wasn’t wrong. All around them, swarming into the stadium by the thousands, were young girls — ranging from 6 to 20 — decked in head-to-toe Harpies gear. They had jerseys, hats, painted faces, bright makeup, and loud, noise-making enchanted accessories. It was an image Hermione had grown used to — she had been to enough games over the years where the sight of thousands of young female Quidditch fans turning out in droves no longer necessarily surprised her — but it was still impactful, all the same. The feminist within her swelled with pride at the sight of so many young women, energized at the prospect of watching history in the making. And upon closer inspection, her pride only grew.

Ginny, as a young and particularly beautiful Chaser, had more than her fair share of frenetic fans. Her posters were amongst some of the fastest-selling team merchandise available, surpassing even long-standing veterans and reliable crowd favourites (at least, that’s what she had been told). Ginny made an early name for herself with her quick flying and heart-stopping manoeuvres, with her tenacity and willingness to do practically anything to make a shot. She was the second best goal scorer on the team, and was sure to take the top honour any day now.

So when Hermione looked out on the crowd to see that roughly 20% of the Harpies kits worn by fans said ‘WEASLEY’ in bold letters across the back… Well.

“It’s kind of amazing, isn’t it?” Harry asked quietly, almost reverently.

As Hermione trailed after him and up the stadium to where their box was located, she had to agree. It _was_ pretty amazing.

~~

“Oh I always hate this part,” Hermione muttered, hands over her eyes, peeking out at the action in front of her through barely-parted fingers.

“What,” George laughed, “the tip-off? The game’s only just begun!”

“Yeah, cheer up, Hermione! She’ll be brilliant!” Ron laughed, throwing his arm around a young Teddy’s shoulders and lifting him onto his lap.

The eight-year-old grinned a wide, gap-toothed smile. He had lost the front ones only 2 nights before, and proudly displayed his crooked smile whenever he had the opportunity. “Gin-ny! Gin-ny!” He cheered, waiving a small flag emblazoned with the Harpies’ logo, his hair dyed a bright leprechaun green to match their uniforms. He was only just getting a handle on his metamorphmageous abilities — with Harry and Hermione’s help, of course — so every once in a while his hair would suddenly flip back to its default (and Teddy’s favourite), a bright ocean blue. But whenever that happened, Ron would simply lay a hand on the top of his head. Teddy, realising his slipup, would stick his tongue between his teeth and scrunch his little face up until his hair slowly transitioned back to the appropriate colour. It was an amusing and heart-warming image, and Harry beamed with pride every time he successfully completed a transition.

“Oh, here she comes, Ted!” Ron whispered excitedly, like they were co-conspirators planning some great heist. “Wave your flag higher, so she can see!”

Teddy immediately threw his chubby arm straight up in the air, waving his flag frenetically as Ginny whizzed by their box. The whole section exploded into raucous cheers, thunderous shouts of “YEAH, GINNY!” “ALRIGHT WEASLEY!” and “BRING IT HOME, GIN!” from her brothers and a few former Gryffindor teammates.

They were a rowdy section. A whole clan of the Weasley extended family packed into one booth — Molly and Arthur, George and Angelina, Bill and Fleur and young Victoire, Ron and Lavender, Harry and Teddy, Neville and Luna, Percy, and even Charlie had made the trip from his station in Romania to watch the match. It wasn’t every day their only sister played in the Quidditch World Cup finals, after all. Besides, Ginny would have had their heads if any of them had missed.

Hermione’s heart swooped as Ginny performed a daring barrel roll on her broomstick, using the opportunity while she was upside-down to knock the Quaffle out of the hands of the opposing team’s Chaser. The stadium cheered as the Harpies regained control of the Quaffle, and Hermione’s heart rate slowly returned to normal.

“She really is brilliant, Hermione,” Harry shouted with a grin, clapping his hands together loudly, visibly impressed by the play.

“Well, of course I know that, Harry. She’s my _wife_.”

There were a few quick, hard passes between Ginny and two of her teammates as they made their way down the pitch. Ginny, in possession of the Quaffle, feinted left before rocketing the ball past the outstretched arms of the Keeper.

_“Ten points to Holyhead!”_ The announcer shouted over the thunderous crowd. _“The first points of this match, courtesy of Ginny Weasley, Holyhead’s youngest Chaser! We’re on our way, folks!”_

The stadium roared, but none cheered louder than the private box at the very top.

~~

The game had been on for nearly 90 minutes, and a tense 90 minutes it had been. Holyhead was up, but only barely: 140-110. Ginny was playing brilliantly, of course, with 8 goals and an additional 2 assists, but without the Snitch, it would hardly matter. Harry, falling back on his Seeker training, scanned the sky above the stadium carefully. Twice now he had caught sight of the golden ball, zipping through the air. He muttered darkly under his breath — a few quite curses that were too low even for Teddy to hear — both times when neither of the teams’ Seekers were able to see what he had.

“Stop showing off, Harry!” George called from somewhere in the back row.

Harry flushed to the tips of his ears and slumped a little in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. His slightly sour mood didn’t last long, however, as no sooner had he settled in with a frown then Teddy decided to clamber up on his lap. Harry immediately melted the moment the boy smiled at him. He was a sap when it came to his godson, and he spoiled him rotten. (Then again, they all did; the Weasleys doted on Teddy like he was one of their own. From the ages of about 4-6 he kept his hair a near-permanent shade of orange to match the rest of the Weasley family.)

The referee shot three short blasts through his whistle, and the game paused for a brief league-mandated timeout. Hermione thought it was well deserved, too, as both teams had been flying at breakneck pace non-stop for well over an hour.

A few members of each team collapsed to the ground on the pitch below, their chests heaving with the strain of being out of breath. The remaining few took the time to swallow water and stretch out their sore legs and muscles. Ginny, of course, was pacing the length of her broom, eyes flicking to the sky, already looking like she was ready to take off again. (She never could tell what was good for her. Always too headstrong, always too determined.)

“Hermione, dear,” Mrs. Weasley said softly, laying a hand on Hermione’s shoulder, “have you eaten today?”

Hermione shook her head with a slightly sheepish smile. “I’ve been too nervous, I think.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” She passed Hermione a neatly wrapped sandwich and placed a hand on her cheek, thumb brushing at the edge of her nose.

Hermione’s smile widened. “Thanks, Molly.”

“I don’t think Ginny’s feeding you right, dear. I always tell her she should take better care of you.”

“Well, she’s a fairly awful cook, so I like to think we take care of each other.”

Molly hummed and pressed a light kiss to the crown of Hermione’s head. “I’ll make sure to send you all some treats when we get home.” Harry perked up in the seat next to them at the mention of ‘treats,’ and Mrs. Weasley chuckled. “I’ll send some to you too, Harry.”

He grinned. “Thanks, Molly. Vicky always loves when you send parcels. She’s pretty helpless at baking, too.”

Molly reached over and patted the top of his head before making her way back to her seat. On the pitch below, the players were grabbing their brooms and fixing their pads, so Hermione figured the match must be starting again at any moment.

Ron leaned across Harry’s body as the whistle blew, the crowd roared, and play resumed. “You sure you can take off for this, ‘Mione?” He teased. “Won’t they need you at the Ministry? Department of Magical Law Enforcement can’t exactly lead itself.”

“Oh, you be quiet,” Lavender shushed him, giving him a light smack on the arm even as her other hand cradled her swollen stomach. “Hermione works _hard_. That isn’t a bad thing. Certainly not something to make fun of her for.”

“Yes, _Ronald_.” Hermione shot him an absurdly exaggerated glare, before turning to the other woman and smiling. “Thank you, Lavender.”

Ron huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “You two are always ganging up on me. Honestly, it isn’t fair.”

Harry laughed. “Your wife and your best mate like each other more than either of them likes you.”

“It’s a nightmare, Harry. Honestly, you don’t know what I’ve been dealing with. Sometimes I think I preferred it when they couldn’t stand each other.” He shook his head. “But it’s fine. I’ll survive. I still have Teddy, and he’s my best man. Isn’t that right, mate?”

“Yeah!” Teddy brought his hand up to meet Ron’s with a loud _thwack_.

Harry turned to Hermione, hid his face behind his hand, and rolled his eyes dramatically. Hermione laughed, but was soon distracted by Ginny whipping by their box, Quaffle tucked securely under her arm.

~~

Thirty minutes later and the Harpies had pulled significantly ahead of their opponents. They were now up 230-140, and Ginny had managed an additional 6 goals, making her the match’s highest-scorer (Hermione tried not to feel too smug with pride, but, well… she could be allowed a _little_ smugness).

But none of it would matter if Amy Greene couldn’t catch the Snitch.

Hermione watched through her fingers as the two Seekers dove after something golden and glittering near the bottom of the pitch. The stadium grew impossibly louder, yells and cries and cheers exploding throughout the arena as the opposing Seekers jostled for position. Harry leapt to his feet, Ron pounded his fist on the railing, and Hermione held her breath as there was a tumble, a grab, and then—

A green-clad arm shot to the sky with the ball clutched tightly in hand, wings fluttering listlessly, and then several things happened all at once.

Fireworks shot into the sky as music blared throughout the stadium. The waves and waves of green and gold wearing fans screamed and stomped their feet. The Holyhead Harpies collapsed into a dogpile as several of them tackled Ginny, Gwenog, and Greene to the ground. Mrs. Weasley burst into tears as George, Bill, and Charlie threw their arms around each other and started jumping up and down. Teddy clambered up onto Ron’s shoulders, waving his flag and blowing through one of the enchanted noisemakers Luna had brought him (it sounded like a roaring lion).

Hermione let out the breath she had been holding. Her smile started out shaky, but then grew wider and wider the longer she sat watching the celebration below.

She watched as a laughing Ginny wiggled her way out of the bottom of the pile of her teammates. She was grinning from ear to ear, even as the women around her called her name to try and draw her back into their group. But Ginny wasn’t looking at them, anymore. Her eyes were pinned to the top of the stadium, where her family stood waiting for her.

She grabbed her broom and took off, and in only a few moments she was jumping off of it and into their box, her eyes bright and her hair wild and looking more beautiful than Hermione had ever seen her.

She beamed at the lot of them. “Well?” She asked. “Are you just gonna stand there?”

Hermione reached her first and managed to sneak in a quick yet bruising kiss before they were mobbed in a dogpile of their own. Hermione hugged herself to Ginny’s chest tightly, arms wrapped around her ribs as first Harry, then Ron and Teddy, then George and Bill and Charlie and Percy and Neville and Luna and Angelina and even Arthur and Molly joined the fray.

They were a pressing, crushing, laughing, dancing mob for a good ten seconds before bit by bit they started to pull away, pressing kisses to Ginny’s cheek or clapping her on the shoulder or back, until once again it was just Hermione left, still tucked under her wife’s chin.

Hermione sat in the hug for a few more seconds, but eventually separated, too. Though she didn’t go far.

“One of the girls on the bench told me you watched half the game through your hands,” Ginny teased, one hand scratching lightly at the nape of Hermione’s neck and the other pressed to her waist. “Still worried about me, after all these years?”

Hermione leaned her forehead against Ginny’s and closed her eyes, whispering, “I’m never going to stop worrying about you as long as you _insist_ on playing this _ridiculous_ game.”

“Y’know, I’ve heard those words a thousand times, from you.” Ginny grinned widely, her cheeks flushed and her hair wind-swept. “They never get old.”

“I’ll try to work on my material. Can’t let myself become predictable _this_ early in our marriage.”

“Don’t you dare change a thing,” Ginny said, shaking her head vehemently. “It’s my good luck charm.”

Music erupted from the stadium speakers as Ginny’s team began to pile themselves on the pitch again, laughing and jumping and dancing and celebrating.

Ginny leaned back in for another, longer embrace, but Hermione put her hand flat on her chest, effectively stopping her. “You have to go get the trophy, Gin!” She laughed, turning her head to the side to dodge the incoming kiss.

Ginny frowned slightly. “The trophy can wait while I kiss my wife, can’t it?”

Hermione flushed, ever so slightly. Even after nearly ten years together, Ginny still found ways to throw her off-balance. “Well,” she said softly, “I suppose it can.”

Ginny kissed her for a long moment, her hands tight at Hermione’s waist, and Hermione felt herself grow weightless for a few thrilling seconds. When they finally pulled apart, Hermione brought her forehead to Ginny’s once more. “I am _so_ proud of you,” she said quietly, her words meant for one person and one person alone. “You know that, right?”

Ginny kissed her again. “I love you, too.”

And as Hermione stood in their private box, watching as her wife hoisted the World Cup trophy high above her head, with Harry’s arm around her waist and Ron whooping and chanting with his brothers, she doubted very much that her life could _possibly_ get any better than right at this moment. Standing with her family on one of the best days of Ginny’s life, hopelessly in love with her and impossibly proud.

Voldemort was long gone. The war had been fought and won. Harry’s scar hadn’t bothered him in years. Ron had a child on the way, and she and Ginny had been having some serious discussions about starting a family of their own, soon.

And Hermione would experience many joys in her future — both big and small. The birth of Ron’s son, Harry’s wedding, the abolition of House Elf servitude, her own pregnancy, Ginny’s eventual transition to sports journalism, Hermione’s eventual election as Minister for Magic, their first house, their first dog, their children first learning how to fly… She would experience many joys in her future, a collection of impossibly happy moments whose sheer existence and scope were completely unfathomable to her at present.

Hermione would have an endless supply of joy in her future life. But for now, she stood in a Quidditch box with her family, yelling herself hoarse as Ginny’s teammates dumped a cooler of water over her head.

And she was happy.

**


End file.
